


A Lovesong of Rooks Executive Summary

by Gabihime



Series: A Lovesong of Rooks [1]
Category: A Lovesong of Rooks
Genre: Angels, Assassins & Hitmen, Bodyguard, Demons, Dom/sub, F/M, Fairy Tales, Fallen Angels, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, May/December Relationship, Military, Multi, Older Man/Younger Woman, Teacher-Student Relationship, assassin x politician
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 10:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 24,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10638456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabihime/pseuds/Gabihime
Summary: The lovesong of a rook is fell and potent, even if he never opens his mouth to sing.Executive summary for the work A Lovesong of Rooks.  Gabriel and Duriel. A love story that spans thousands and thousands of years as is the breadth of the galaxy itself.Or, you know, its just another excuse for me to write another May/December romance between a very serious, difficult man, and a crazy brain addled girl.  It's got angels, demons, and a zombie tiger.  What more do you want?Pedal to the metal kids.  It's on.





	1. Holy War

The Holy War is a time period of Angelic reckoning, happening at least seven thousand years previous to the Final Days. The actual concrete physical dates of the Holy War in relation to mundane history are difficult to assign, since most of the demons and angels walking the earth at that time have no frame of reference with which to date themselves precisely before the advent of recorded human history, around the year 3000 B.C.E. Thus traditionally it is assumed that the Holy War epoch happened some time between seven and ten thousand years ago, and no more recently than seven thousand years ago.

 

#  **Early History**

Although small gatherings of angelic at the site of the Watchtower happen some years before, Holy War reckoning begins in the year HW 001 when the first stone of the Watchtower is laid and continues until HW 198, when the final battle of the period is fought at the Altar of Resurrection. During this time period the center of angelic activity is the Watchtower, while centers for demonic activity are the City of Ys and the City of Dis.

The angelic civilization is an advanced Pre-Babylonian one, with a great deal of its technology and scientific understanding credited to its educational institution as well as to the faint memory of a more advanced civilization that had existed some time before (although not understood, this is an artifact of the cyclical nature of the universe). Arcane and magical elements fully permeate the lifestyle and living systems of the angelic at their stronghold, and to a lesser degree the surrounding satellite forts that make up the angelic nation as a whole.

The social structure is a mix of the primitive tribal and the highly evolved, also possibly remnants of an older advanced civilization. Angelic society is primarily a meritocracy, self-organizing around the choir system inherent in angelic nature.

Residents of the Watchtower, while primarily of European, Near African, and Near Asian descent, run the full gamut of world ethnicities, and some families were known to travel for generations to reach the Watchtower site as the first angelics were gathering there. Of the residents of the Watchtower during the later Holy War, about half of them are from angelic legacy families, while the other half are either born of angelic blood outside the keep or born spontaneously of mortal blood. Purity of blood is not a concern among most angelics.

#  **Government and Social Structure**

Angelic civilization is governed from, and consists almost wholly of the Watchtower. The angelic government consists of a High Council of four Archangels and four additional chora. The Archangels are elected by popular vote, and an open forum sits before the council for anyone to petition. A great deal of the government's attention is on logistics and the support of the Angelic Military, which defends the territories held by the Watchtower.

Non-angelics rarely live within the walls of the keep, as they have their own communities outside it. Humans are not viewed as citizens of the Watchtower, but are rather considered to be under its protection. No humans are employed in any menial capacity in the keep unless they specifically request to do so; even then, they usually continue to live beyond the walls of the keep.

The ongoing war with demonic forces across the world is the overriding concern of the angelics, and as such a great deal of the population is actively engaged in military service. 

Reproduction is traditionally viewed as positive, and marriage is regarded as a secondary concern. Most children of military parents go to the dormitories to live -- the city’s community creche -- either because they are orphaned or because their parents are too busy to care for them. This creche system is firmly entrenched in the Watchtower, and it is regarded as positive, allowing for a strong community spirit and the consistent rearing of children.

Citizenship in the Watchtower is regulated via the class designations system. Each child must complete primary and secondary schooling at the Academy, and they typically serve an apprenticeship as well. Following this, young adults serve a compulsory first tour in the military. Most adult angelics serve in the military on and off throughout their lives, which typically end violently.

Law in the Watchtower is common law, established through precedent, and it is meted out the same whether in a military or civilian context; there is no differentiation between the two. The legal system is minimal, with all legal officials reporting to Hesed, the Southeast seat on the council. The council itself functions as the highest court if the need arises.

#  **Zeitgeist**

The Holy War epoch is perhaps best defined as the medieval model made real and tangible. Underpinning all aspects of society and angelic life (whether it be in the Watchtower itself, or out in the wilds) is the recurring idea of order, of place, of identity, of  _ being _ as part of an immense complex organism of which you are an important and irreplaceable element.

The essence of choir structure is instinctual to all angelics, whether or not they were raised in the social system of the Watchtower, and angelics define their place in the community, their place among other angelics, and their defining role in interacting within a group on the place the occupy on the Ascension Ladder. Being nature as opposed to social construct, one's place is nigh on impossible to ignore, and the idea of attempting to fight one's place in the choirs or even to wish for a different placement is virtually alien. Every element of the Ladder is valued. Every choir is an indivisible part of the whole. Every member of each choir is valued for their unique abilities and services rendered, for their unique insight into the whole. While the Ascension Ladder is in fact a ladder of stacked choirs, individual members of the higher choirs aren't seen as more valued before the community as individual members of the lowest choirs. Therefore, in the eyes of the angelic community, while the nature and essence of Ofanim and Seraphim is fundamentally different, it is not a case where the Ofanim is undervalued, nor is an Ofanim expected to fill the role and duties of a seraph, and does not feel societal pressure to do so.

In the thinking of the Watchtower, no man is a failure if he embraces his role. Assistant Pig Keepers are just as fulfilled and successful if they embrace their roles as are the highest seats of the High Council.

The same is true in a similar way concerning sphere relevance, although the Tree of Life is a construct and not an intrinsic like choir structure is. Any sphere, no matter how small or unimportant it may seem, is an indivisible part of the whole, one contour of the face of god that cannot be missed. Thus while they occupy different weights in the reckoning of all things to be known, the angel of Life and the angel of the Pomegranate Tree are equally indispensable. Even a sphere that seems very narrow in scope is still the study of a hundred lifetimes to full understanding. There is always something more to know. There is always a deeper truth to understand, whether one is the angel of Kittens, the angel of Stars, or the angel of Bootstraps. In that way, while the young and untried may put importance on the heavier and more encompassing spheres, the wise understand that all things are irreplaceable parts of creation. A duck, an asteroid, and a redwood tree are all good things, and very simply, every angelic that exists has the potential to become a genius in the purest sense of the word when it comes to their particular sphere. It is a community of savants, and all gifts are respected.

Therefore, true success in the Holy War is measured based on personal happiness, on individual understanding, and on acceptance of being. There is a social hierarchy, and in the end the Watchtower is ruled by aristocracy, but there are no have and have-nots. The advances provide such surplus that the Watchtower is blessed to offer every man, woman, and child the basic necessities of a comfortable (even by modern standards) life. To have the privilege of the finer things in life, members of the society must work for the good of the community to the best of their gifts and abilities, but even those who absolutely refuse to embrace their roles and do nothing but lay about amusing themselves are guaranteed food, shelter, medical care, and protection from terrors outside of the keep. There is no form of forced labor, except as a punishment for transgressions against other angelics, and even that is always limited to a certain term, after which the perpetrator is left to do as they will again. There is no devastating drive for personal advancement. There is no never-ending push for personal accomplishment. There is an overwhelming emphasis on personal understanding and acceptance. It is not complacency. People are not encouraged to moulder, they are instead encouraged to immerse themselves in the mystery of their beings, of their spheres, which is something only they have the key to solve. What may seem very restrictive is actually very freeing and comforting, and in this case it is not the opiate of the people, as this system of thought is fundamentally tied to their essences. Angelics instinctively organize themselves in this fashion, even without preexisting knowledge of the system.

#  **Instinct vs. Construct**

Of course, even within a community built around and maintained by such a strong sense of interior unity, there are conflicts and breaks of philosophy, and these both hinder societal development and propel the society forward in turns. Perhaps the most prevalent and primal of these conflicts present at the Watchtower at all times is the conflict between instinct and natural outgrowth and societal construct. The Watchtower's infrastructure is built on the backs of both these institutions, and neither of them can wholly be untangled from what it means to live as a citizen of the angelic city.

On its most base level, all parts of angelic society trace themselves back to instinctual patterning. This is why Choir Philosophy underscores all aspects of angelic life. Before there are social constructs built to answer more complex needs, needs are met simply and in a way that naturally evolves. For example, the Academy is a social construct built to answer the needs of providing even-keeled education for the Watchtower's young, but before the Academy was established, another form of discipline and education had already naturally evolved, and this was the Apprenticeship System. Both these systems are fundamental to life in the Watchtower, and they both co-exist peacefully, but that isn't always true of the Instinct and Construct systems that oppose one another.

In its purest form, conservatism at the Watchtower is best understood not as embracing the status quo, or the way things have always been done, but rather embracing that which comes naturally and instinctively – more primal and perhaps also more brutal answers to problems, whereas liberalism is built around the push for further social constructs and a less brutal civilization. Both sides of the coin have their pros and cons, especially in a world torn apart by constant and unavoidable warfare and atrocity. In the end, both views must be respected and upheld if the Watchtower society is to hold together. The world needs soldiers, yes, but it also needs social workers. The overt political conflicts of the Watchtower's movers and shakers directly parallel the interior conflict that each and every angelic faces. Is it best to embrace instinct and essence, or one's place among others? Is one's first responsibility to oneself, or to one's community? In the end, the balance is somewhere in between the two extremes, and different for each person living within the Watchtower's walls.

Common manifestations of this conflict between instinct and construct include the ideas that with such surplus and such advancements being made every moment of every day, should not all members of the Watchtower be given higher and higher standards of living because such is within their grasp. The conservative side argues that to simply give everyone everything they could want will reduce their drive and their industry. It takes away rewards for the hardworking and has the danger of making people both lazy and soft, both dreadfully dangerous attributes to have during never-ending wartime in a society of soldiers-by-birth, although it does improve the standards of living for everyone in the keep. Another easy to recognize example is the argument over involvement with the mortal population. Liberals argue that all mortals should be welcomed into the keep, and that angelic forts should consider human settlements to be their own and to be protected as their own. Conservatives argue that doing so spreads the military base too thin, and that although it is unfortunate to see others suffer, the military's first responsibility is to its own civilian population. It is better that at least some be protected than none be protected by an army spread too thin, especially against an enemy that will commit horrible war crimes at a whim. Some liberals see it as the duty of the angelics to take their societal and technological advances out to the mortal humans outside the keep, while conservatives think that such is meddling with the natural order of the world.

Practically, there is no legislation that keeps individuals from acting on their own initiative for their beliefs, whether they be conservative or liberal. Any angelic can go out among the mortals outside the keep and attempt to teach them the science of advanced agriculture and animal husbandry, but they do so on their own, with only the backing of any friends or companions they may be able to rally to their cause, because the political machine of the Watchtower itself rarely makes sweeping policy decisions involving the freedoms of its people, although such things are commonly popular topics for debate in all political discussions, formal or informal. Popularity of certain views, liberal or conservatism, tends to ebb and flow with the passage of time. The Watchtower itself began its history with a very strongly conservative bent, as that is the resting state of the angelic psyche. It is only when one has been given the time and safety to think of things beyond a place to sleep unmolested and food to eat that one has the luxury of being liberal. So the Watchtower began as a very conservative state, then slowly shifted, become more and more liberal until there was a backlashing counter-movement against the liberalism prevalent in the middle Holy War years, so that at the time of the late Holy War the Watchtower has again become extremely conservative, although this neo-conservatism also embraces social constructs they feel reinforce instinctual movements, and don't rely solely on the push of instincts themselves.

#  **Science and Advancement**

Societies push the boundaries of the possible when the sufficiently intelligent have the luxury of time given to understanding the world around them. The Isaac Newtons of the world need time and resources in order to form their great ideas, which in turn pave a road toward not only practical, but further scientific advances as well.

But such people need education, leisure time, and support, which they do not always have. However, what if there were a people who each understood, intrinsically and completely, a certain aspect of the world around them? What if these people lived and worked with each other, building their world on mutual understanding, giving free reign to new ideas? It would be as though all the genius of mankind were together in one place.

That world, of brilliant insight, support, and tremendous momentum for change, is the Watchtower. Each angelic brings a unique and perfect understanding of the world to the keep, and Holy War society welcomes them all, using that incredible depth of understanding to facilitate change at an amazing pace.

Thanks to the individual prowess of each angelic within his or her sphere, the world at the Watchtower, in the course of two hundred years, moves from a huddled, oppressed agrarian society to an advanced, thriving city with modern sanitation, practically zero infant mortality, literacy, literature, small-scale manufacturing, and scholarship.

It is a mistake to regard the Watchtower as a static entity; scientific progress every day leaps forward, making more and more possible. Medical science is invented and moves from herbal elixirs to cell biology in less than a century. Agriculture becomes standardized and crop yields skyrocket. Unlike everyone else on earth, the citizens of the Watchtower need not concern themselves with getting food. It is there in abundance, thanks to their agricultural advances and the ability to regulate weather conditions via magical means.

The Hall of Scholars does not contain stodgy theorists who refuse to budge from their old ideas; on the contrary, every day every scholar is running to catch up with the marvels of the day before. Every day in the Keep is a day of progress, and renewed hope. Seeing the changes they have made in such a short time, the angelics cannot but believe that they can remake the world in this wonderful image of prosperity.

For an example of what it means to be within the walls of the keep, you need look no further than this: peasants in human settlements dig in the dirt with basic tools, fearful of demons, and die before they reach thirty-five; citizens of the keep can learn to play the harpsichord in their spare time. That is the meaning of progress and advancement for both the scholars and the masses - freedom from sickness, and hunger, and fear, embracing change and learning every day of some new innovation that will change their lives forever.

In such a place, and in such a dark time, the Watchtower is not merely a shelter. It is the only society the world has, so far ahead of its time that within its walls one could be in another world.

#  **The Problem Facing Late Holy War Society**

In many ways, the brilliant pulse of both societal advancement and technological advancement comes at a cost that is finally starting to catch up with the Watchtower by the very late Holy War period. People have not had enough time to adapt or consider the advancements they've made, and as society advances so quickly, the citizens of the Watchtower at the end of the Holy War are facing more and more complex social issues that they aren't equipped to deal with. Sexual roles are changing, familial roles are changing, and the lives of the children raised are so vastly different than that of their parents that generational gaps are widening. The Holy War is a brilliant explosion of two hundred years of passion, life, and color. It is history and innovation that does not stop to breathe, and this puts a strain on the people that is beginning to tell in the last years of the Holy War. It is also becoming apparent that they are fighting a war without a conceivable end and with horrifying costs, and there's a hollowness around some people's eyes as they begin to question if the fight is worth it (although there's still no choice of peace for them in the matter). Late Holy War society has lost its innocence, and has not yet found something to put up in its place. 


	2. Duriel's Youth

When Duriel is a boy of twelve he comes to the Watchtower with his sister.  They have traveled two years, all the way from Central Asia, to get to this fabled place of safety, the seat of angelic society in an otherwise wild and brutal world.  His mother has died along the way, leaving him the guardian of his younger sister.  He has not known his father from the time of his birth.  At the Watchtower, he and his sister are immediately accepted as citizens as they are both angelics, and this is standard practice.  Duriel is the angel of Clemency and his sister Moriham is the angel of Last Rites.  The two children are shunted into the Watchtower’s community crèche system together.    


For Duriel, the Watchtower truly is the promised land, an ideal society.  It is safe and peaceful and good, the best thing in the world. It is worth what he and his sister sacrificed to get them there.  It is worth even the sacrifice of their mother, who died to ensure that her children had a chance at survival.  The Watchtower furnishes many firsts for Duriel. It is the first time in his life that he is well-fed and comfortable.  It is the first time he has slept without setting a watch.  It is the first time has ever been able to accept the idea that he is safe.

During Duriel’s first year at the Watchtower he meets Zadkiel, a decorated war hero in the special ops branch of the angelic army who now works on permanent assignment at the Watchtower as an analyst under the Watchtower’s Spymaster, Delsimiel.  Duriel is so struck by Zadkiel that he asks to be Zadkiel’s apprentice on the spot, although as Duriel will inevitably be a speed-based agility fighter and Zadkiel is a heavy endurance and defense based fighter, the fit is a bit dubious.  Although initially skeptical, Zadkiel is impressed by Duriel's mettle, and eventually accepts his petition.  Duriel begins as his apprentice immediately.

 


	3. Duriel's Apprenticeship

Duriel’s apprenticeship with Zadkiel involves him with Zadkiel’s nontraditional family: Zadkiel’s beautiful and sweet tempered wife, Jabriel, his sunny, laughing husband Samand’riel, and their busy, resourceful baby daughter Gabriel.  Duriel promptly develops a fierce unrequited first love for Jabriel, and soon is completely embroiled in the doings of their family, leaving him little time for his sister in the crèche.

 

Eventually she’ll go into apprenticeship too, to learn how to be a coroner and undertaker.  Duriel loses touch with her as their apprenticeships continue, and she eventually ends up at another fortified angelic city, the Dragonjaw.  His loss of touch with her is something that he will feel vaguely guilty for his whole adult life.  Instead of his sister, he will focus all his familial attentions on another orphaned girl.  When he finally hears of his sister again, she will be dead.  Fortunately, this does not happen for many years.

  
Zadkiel’s family is a happy one, although small.  And even though they are very happy with one another, the longer Duriel knows them the better he comes to understand their complicated circumstances.


	4. Irahlem the Archangel and Kitrael the Kennelmaster

The first of their complicated circumstances is Jabriel’s relationship with her father.  The second is Jabriel’s strained relationship with the rest of the Watchtower’s citizenry.

Jabriel has been disowned by her father.  In addition, she has always been considered something of an embarrassment at the Watchtower, being the not-very-accomplished child of the legendary first Archangel of West, Irahlem and the city’s less-than-personable Kennelmaster.  Kitrael and Irahlem’s love affair was not an auspicious match, although Irahlem was hardheaded and imperious enough (or perhaps just naive enough) to believe she could sway the public’s opinion concerning her choice of partner.  She wanted them to love the man she did, as she did, to see all his great gifts and to gently forgive his faults.  The public were not quite so magnanimous, and from the time that his involvement with Irahlem became public and until his death, Kitrael the kennelmaster remained one of the least popular and most reviled residents of the Watchtower.    


That was fine with him.  He hated them in equal measure for always taking from Irahlem and offering her nothing substantial in return.  He hated their fawning and their hypocrisy, and he was never shy about sharing his opinions.  He wanted nothing to do with toadies or politics despite being married to the most powerful politician in the city.  People thought him vulgar, dirty, and stupid, although he was none of these things ( well, maybe vulgar ).  He was however frank, direct, and honest, never given to flattery or meaningless praise.  He was gentle and patient with children and animals and simple in his tastes and pleasures. Besides his wife and daughter, he preferred the company of dogs to other humans.

  
Irahlem never once cooled her efforts to get the public to accept her husband, even until her death, but although she was very sincere, her efforts were not particularly successful.  Still, she never gave up hope that her husband and daughter would be accepted and loved as well as she was. Nor did she give up hope in the system that she had been an integral part of since she had toddled her first steps.  She believed in the dream of the Watchtower, the dream that had brought her parents together, the dream that had birthed her.  The promised land was one that they created themselves, with toil and effort and commitment.  This was the dream that Irahlem believed in.  From the beginning it had been a dream founded on sacrifice.


	5. Rosa Canina: Jabriel, the Unwanted Cherub

When Irahlem’s only child was born the public was unsurprised (but still disappointed) when the girl child turned out to be a cherub rather than a seraph like her mother.  Seraphim are expected to begat seraphim, especially when they only produce one child.  As a rule, they do.  Jabriel just happens to be the exception to that rule, and an exception to many others besides.    


In other circumstances, the birth of a cherub would have been a cause for great celebration (as would the birth of any child) but all the people cared about was what Jabriel was not: a seraph like her mother.  Jabriel was not born appropriately bewinged, and the people gossiped that it was because her kennelmaster father was only an arelim, the second lowest rung on the ascension ladder.   While Irahlem lived, people generally kept their gossiping out of her earshot, although it was always clear that Kitrael and his daughter were considered a nuisance.  After Irahlem’s death, there was no cause for anyone to be civil, particularly after Kitrael’s vitriolic and bitter indictment of the whole system in open senate.  It was the first and last time he spoke on the subject of politics in public.  He and his daughter were cleared out of Irahlem’s home in the seat of government and they both went to live where Kitrael had lived originally, among the hounds of the kennels.

The shadow of her mother’s death followed Jabriel all through her childhood, as did the shadow of her parents’ unpopular match, and her own disappointing birth.  On top of this, Jabriel had aptitudes for magical combat (like a seraph) but the choir augments of a cherub (physical augments meant for physical combat).   This mismatch meant that she rarely tested as well as she performed in the field, and a string of poor and mediocre evaluations followed her through her life.

Better for Irahlem to have no child at all, the people thought, than to have this clumsy, awkward girl who was forever making mistakes, who was dull and stupid and weak-willed.  Her mother has been an empress born, the most beautiful woman at the  Watchtower, an excellent diplomat and politician with a keen mind and incredible charisma and personal savvy.  Irahlem had been the queen of all she surveyed, but Jabriel was thought to be slow, stupid, and very plain.

  
Of course, she was none of these things, but just as it had been with her father, people see what they want to see.  Because of their circumstances -- an us against the world mentality -- Jabriel was devoted to her father Kitrael.  Not only was he her only family, but also her best friend.  She was content simply to be among the dogs and with him.  But then she met someone who changed all that: Zadkiel, the angel of Forbearance. 


	6. Jabriel and Zadkiel

Zadkiel and Jabriel’s meeting was pure chance, a moment of absolute hitsuzen.  He had been on his feet for days, personally bringing back sensitive information vital to the war effort from a central field command outpost.  He was exhausted, dead on his feet since he had not stopped to eat or rest for fear that the information would be delayed.

A career soldier and analyst in his early forties, Zadkiel had not actually been home to the Watchtower in years, having spent all of his previous short furloughs in smaller forts and settlements.  He found everything strange (but perhaps that was just because of his absolute exhaustion).  Zadkiel had really forgotten what civilian life was like.

After having delivered his critical information, Delsimiel ordered Zadkiel back to his quarters to rest and set aside a mandatory one month leave, despite the fact that Zadkiel protested that he would be ready to travel back out to the front again in less than a week.  In the end, Zadkiel found he could not argue with his commander and reluctantly made his way to his quarters, even though he scarcely remembered the way, given how rarely he had used them during the course of his adult life.

It is as he passes near the orchards that he has his moment of destiny.

There is suddenly a beautiful girl standing in front of him.  She has her arms full of pear blossoms and the wind is blowing them in a flurry around her.  It is Jabriel and she has been out gathering pear blossoms for one of her craft projects.    


She thinks he is possibly the most handsome man she has ever seen.  He does have that competent war hero look, certainly.

It is while she is rapidly becoming smitten that Zadkiel delivers what is probably the most eloquent line in his entire life: “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in weeks.” (This is a true statement, but he is probably only this loquacious because he is so sleep deprived he may be hallucinating.)

Zadkiel then proceeds to almost collapse.  Jabriel drops her pear blossoms to catch him and leads him to the green grass nearby.  By the time she gets him down on the grass, Zadkiel is already fast asleep.  Having no way else to make him comfortable, Jabriel rolls him until his head is in her lap.

Unwilling to leave his side even for a moment, Jabriel dispatches her dog Jelly home for a quilt, which she uses to cover her new paramour -- there is no question for Jabriel when it comes to Zadkiel.  She is more than ready to be his if he will have her.  She has absolutely no experience with love or relationships, having led a lonely, isolated life, but she has already fallen for Zadkiel pretty hopelessly.  Fortunately, Zadkiel is serious, steady, and responsible.  He is genuine, and a genuine lover is what she has been pining for since she was a small girl.    


Jabriel is a romantic at heart: gentle and sweet and easily hurt.  She loved to hear stories of her mother and father’s courtship when she was growing up.  She believes in love.  She believes in true love.  Beyond that she believes in love at first sight.

Jabriel waits patiently beside Zadkiel for hours as he sleeps, afraid that if she leaves his side she will never see him again (she has never seen him before, after all).  He sleeps for fourteen hours, and when he wakes, feeling much more human, they speak briefly, and then she takes him back to the kennels to feed him, as the cafeteria is long closed.  By the end of the evening (the morning) he has proposed to her and she has accepted. The next day Zadkiel applies for immediate transfer to central intelligence operations at the Watchtower, and retires from active military service.

His daughter’s unexpected encounter and whirlwind romance is something that Kitrael can understand.  His own courtship of Irahlem took weeks rather than years, and he is confident that he is a good judge of character.  He believes Zadkiel can make his daughter happy.  He believes that she loves Zadkiel and that he loves her.  Although Kitrael will miss her company in the kennels, he is happy to see her happy, loved and appreciated by such a steadfast man.    


But this is not the end of their story.


	7. Jabriel and Samand'riel

Eight weeks after having met Zadkiel, and before her own happy wedding takes place, Jabriel meets the cheerful, warm Samand’riel, who is a new veterinarian working among the animals of the Watchtower’s pastures and stables (and kennels).  After meeting Jabriel while on a call to look at her father’s dogs, Sama is powerfully smitten, just as Zadkiel has been.  Soon he is as regular a caller at the kennels as Zadkiel, the accepted affianced.  Jabriel knows that she loves Zadkiel, and the way she feels about Sama is somewhat different but no less true.  Zadkiel, being the angel of Forbearance, is willing to give Jabriel the time she needs to sort through her feelings.  He is both patient and honorable.  He will let Jabriel make up her own mind on which of them to marry, and not force her to uphold her earlier marriage.

Zadkiel finds that it's unexpectedly easy to be around Sama, despite the fact that he is the direct competition for the one true guiding happiness in Zadkiel’s life.  Sama’s smile is so warm, his laugh is so infectious, he is so personable and sweet tempered that Zadkiel cannot help but like him despite himself.  Zadkiel is not entirely sure what to make of that.

But then it comes out during a picnic with them both in attendance on her that Sama is wholly uninterested in taking Jabriel away from Zadkiel (which is good because she is completely uninterested in leaving him).  Sama confesses to have fallen in love with both of them, and after some cool surprise on Zadkiel’s part and some delirious happiness on Jabriel’s part, it turns out that this is an arrangement that satisfies all parties very well.

Jabriel has never been happier in her entire life.  Zadkiel suddenly finds himself with a young husband-to-be in addition to his young wife-to-be.  Sama is totally relaxed and content, having finally found his place in the world.


	8. Three Together

When Jabriel goes home that night after the picnic and shyly tries to share her happiness with her father, all hell breaks loose.  He cannot wrap his mind around the fact that she has decided to be with both men, and that they are both amenable to this.  It is the antithesis to his being, since he is the angel of Loyalty.  Kitrael throws her out of his house after a stormy browbeating and tells her that he never wants to see her shameful face again. Irahlem has been dead since Jabriel was a child, and the angel of loyalty has no remaining friends besides dogs, so there is no one to soften his heart.  He cannot fathom how his daughter could dare to split her affections between two husbands. (She doesn’t.  She loves them both deeply, but Kitrael is not ready to understand that). 

Jabriel, having no place else to go as she has never lived alone in her adult life, promptly moves in with Zadkiel at his invitation, and he decides that it would probably be best for all involved if they simply move up the date of their intended nuptials.  Sama is also amenable.  As soon as Jabriel moves in, he wants to move in too.    


Zadkiel, however, wants to do things in (what he considers to be) the appropriate order.  Here, they meet another snag.

Before the three of them can get married, they must prove that they deserve to be married and also that the law allows them to be married.  There is no precedent for such a marriage to be formally recognized by the community at the Watchtower.  Although some similar relationships had existed at various points since the city’s founding, none had ever been officially registered on the books.  None of them had been celebrated as marriages.  Jabriel, who was used to being a black sheep, might have been willing to accept being further excluded from society, and Sama was not deeply concerned with propriety, but Zadkiel was determined to force the community to recognize them with the same honor and dignity as other marriage matches.  He successfully argued their case before the High Council and they were granted permission to marry.  It was a small ceremony with only a couple of guests, but it was a ridiculously happy one, and one that had certainly been worth fighting for.

Over time, the community at the Watchtower begins to accept their unusual family, if only as a courtesy to Zadkiel, who is very well respected, and Sama who is friendly and well-loved, although they always remain a popular topic of gossip and curiosity.


	9. The Fourth is a Child

Neither Zadkiel nor Sama have family at the Watchtower other than Jabriel and Gabriel, so their home is a domestic universe unto itself. It is small and happy and cozy. The family also has a dog, the angelic hound Jelly, who appears to be a dachshund. He has loyally stayed with Jabriel even after her expulsion from her father’s house. Jabriel makes quilts when she is not serving in the army as a decorated battle mage. Sama works as a veterinarian in the fields surrounding the city. Zadkiel continues his work as an analyst as well as training Duriel. He usually has Gabriel with him as Jabriel is often out on military tour and Sama’s job demands more of his attention than Zadkiel’s does.


	10. The Fifth is a Son

Duriel’s training with Zadkiel is brutal, but thorough.  He learns not only how to be a dangerous combatant, but also how to be good soldier, and a better man.  He is even acclimated to the softer elements of adulthood by Jabriel, who teaches him how to dance, and any number of other genteel lessons, like how to be polite to a lady, fine manners at dinner, and other important topics for genteel life.  As Irahlem’s daughter, Jabriel has had these lessons drilled into her.    


Duriel is a model apprentice, and becomes Zadkiel’s surrogate son.  They are a tightly knit group.  Duriel’s accolades as a young man are also his adopted family’s accolades.  Everyone celebrates when he is named Squire of the Crown at age fourteen, having won the apprentice combat tournament at Pennons.

Sanctioned fights in tournaments are not the only fights Duriel engages in during his apprenticeship.  He often fights whole groups of miscreants.  He will not hear one ill word about Jabriel, and he is always ready to defend her honor.  He understands that this duty falls to him because as established adults, neither Zadkiel nor Sama can rightly challenge and beat down a bunch of trash talking youths.  As their junior in weight and age, Duriel has no such restrictions.  Public fighting (outside of nonlethal duels) is still officially against the rules, but happens commonly at the Watchtower, especially among young people and children.

When Duriel begins his crusade to stamp out disrespect against Jabriel, he loses more altercations than he wins.  Zadkiel, who is touched by Duriel’s numerous Pyrrhic victories and losses, takes it upon himself to specially train Duriel in many non-lethal brawling techniques.  Duriel applies himself with diligence and he is a quick study.  Over time, his ratio of wins begins to climb, even against very unfavorable odds.

Of course, Jabriel never wants Duriel to fight on her behalf.  She is always there to clean him up when he comes to their house with bruised knuckles or a bloody nose.  She is used to being spoken of in the way they speak of her.  It's not worth it for Duriel to he hurt on her part -- Of course, Duriel loves being petted and comforted and fawned on by Jabriel.  He always promises never to fight again, and he always promptly breaks his promise when the need arises.

It is also during Duriel’s street fighting career that he meets Raziel, a boy two years his senior who is getting the crap kicked out of him for being intellectually superior around bullies. This is not so much a fight as it is a beat down.  Duriel, who doesn’t think it's particularly appropriate for several boys to pick on one who’s obviously (physically) smaller and weaker than they are, then gets into a fight with a pack of boys who are all older and bigger than he is.  He is the winner of this fight, due to his considerable experience and stonewall attitude, and Raziel becomes his lifelong friend as a consequence.  Raziel, the angel of Arcane Mysteries, is ready to enter the Hall of Scholars for his graduate studies, having already finished his apprenticeship.

Like Zadkiel’s family, Raziel is an outsider in society.  He is the youngest of seven children born of a human mother, and most of his brothers and sisters are also human.  Although he is not actively discriminated against, he doesn’t receive all the benefits that growing up in a purely angelic family affords.  His course of study at the Hall of Scholars is also controversial, involving the study of magical rituals generally considered forbidden.  He specializes in blood magic.

Raziel never really learns to keep his mouth shut and who he ought not to insult.  What he learns is that Duriel will generally fight on his behalf if he is threatened with pummeling.  Most bully types at the Watchtower have learned by experience that it's not wise to pick a fight with Duriel (no matter their relative size and accomplishments), and so Raziel enjoys some immunity to physical reprisal courtesy of his friendship with Duriel.  As always, Raziel uses this to his greatest advantage.


	11. The Case of Jabriel

When Duriel is fourteen, tragedy strikes Zadkiel’s little family.  Jabriel has been out on tour for months, fighting in the highly contested Eastern Theater of the war.  Zadkiel is on the practice groups with Duriel when he receives a letter informing him of Jabriel’s ultimate sacrifice through overburn and her consequent final death.  Upon reading the letter, Zadkiel sets off for the fields to find Sama, quite forgetting about his apprentice and young daughter.

When Duriel catches up with his master it is at the home he has shared with Sama, Jabriel, and their little daughter.  Zadkiel has gone to pieces.  He is only half aware as he takes Gabriel back from Duriel, having not even realized she was missing.  He and the angel of Fertility are both dead eyed and wanting.

Jabriel’s death through overburn means her final death, with no chance of reincarnation.  She has shattered her own soul during ascension in exchange for the brief power overload that allowed her to save the other women on the team she commanded.  Zadkiel and Samand’riel know that they will never see their beloved wife again, no matter how many days dawn in their future, no matter how many times they are born and die.  It is a crippling realization.

And it is impossible for Zadkiel and Sama, and also for Duriel not to realize the reasons behind Jabriel’s choice to make the ultimate sacrifice.  She has lived her life in service to the state that had always rejected her, and makes the ultimate sacrifice as an attempt to apologize to the world for the terrible sin of not being born a seraph, the sin of having been born her father’s daughter.  She had been driven into a corner by the expectations of everyone outside her family a close circle of friends.  She was no good to them alive.  The most decent thing she could do was die nobly and be honored that way.

And it came as a pleasant surprise and shock to all of her critics when shy, weak-willed Jabriel had the mettle to shatter her own soul on the battlefield, marking her as one of the greatest heroes the Watchtower ever honors: the Martyrs of the Highest Cause, those who have shattered their souls through overburn in service to the state.  She became not simply a hero, but one of the greatest heroes, one of the saints of the Watchtower’s growing Cult of the Martyr.

Zadkiel and Sama want no such honor for their wife.  They will not celebrate what is ultimately Jabriel’s suicide.

When the Watchtower decides to honor Jabriel with a monument equal to her sacrifice in the Field of Heroes, Zadkiel fights tooth and nail to have Jabriel buried less ostentatiously.  They cannot stand the hypocrisy of the city who will welcome Jabriel back as a hero only after her final death.  This time Zadkiel fails to sway the High Council and Jabriel is honored with a monument as one of the Martyrs of the Highest Cause.  This loss adds insult to injury.  Both Zadkiel and Sama are devastated and from this point on, only go through the motions of living.  Jabriel’s death and the resulting battle with the council over her burial affects Duriel profoundly.

  
It will be just a year before Duriel is released from his apprenticeship.  Sama releases his own apprentice Mqttro, angel of Culling as well.  Gabriel is sent to the community crèche for temporary care.  Having cast off the last of their obligations, Zadkiel and Sama both return to active duty on the front, both of them carrying a coil of their dead wife’s braided hair on their hip.  They are dead before Duriel finishes his first tour, and Gabriel becomes a permanent ward of the community crèche, an orphan, as he had been.  She is not yet five years old.


	12. Duriel's Young Adulthood and Military Career

Duriel spends the next several years of his life making his way very successfully as a soldier in the special ops division of the angelic army, as Zadkiel had done before him.  Upon his mentor’s death, he inherits his weapon, known only as Zadkiel’s Lance.  Eventually this lance will be made over as Duriel’s personal soul weapon, but it begins as a mundane lance, long and heavy.

Duriel spends time with Gabriel when he can, but these visits come sporadically as he is often out on tour.  He is what remains of her family at this point, one last connection to a golden past that had been filled with warmth and love and laughter.  As difficult as making time to see her can be, he is ever faithful, as he feels both familial fondness and a great deal of responsibility toward her.  He never misses her birthday and tries his hardest to always be present at all the small milestones in her life.  She is the only person he writes letters to, and she is the only person who writes letters to him.  Among the other soldiers of his unit this becomes something of a running joke.  Duriel the cold fish is always off to court the nine year old, and seems to have no other social entanglements, other than his continuing friendship with Raziel.  He cultivates romantic or sexual relationships with neither women nor men.  He is popularly characterized as being made of stone, with the appetites to match. He is a very successful soldier, but less successful as a civilian.  His home remains spartan and mostly bare, with few creature comforts, just a few venerated relics that remain from Zadkiel’s family.

Duriel struggles against a growing feeling that the Watchtower’s promise of paradise remains unfulfilled.  The paragon of what he still considers the best of what the Watchtower has to offer, Zadkiel’s family, turned out to be social pariahs, beset on all sides by disapproval and disappointment.  Jabriel, the best, most kind and gentle, perfect individual Duriel has ever met was an outcast all her life because of the circumstances of her birth, and venerated only upon her death.  Jabriel’s own mother Irahlem worked herself for the city until total exhaustion caused her to drop dead, and this sacrifice is also venerated.  It is from Jabriel herself that Duriel learns the story of Irahlem, so different than the picture of Irahlem’s death and life that is presented as official history.  And despite all of this, Jabriel herself has no bitterness over the way she has been treated, only sadness and loneliness.

And Duriel cannot help but notice that with her fathers dead, Gabriel is forgotten completely by everyone but him, despite being a little seraph child and Irahlem’s grandchild.  They are uninterested in her because they have no need of her.  She is fed and cared for in the community crèche, another faceless orphan among countless others.


	13. Gabriel's Childhood as an Orphan

Gabriel feels the loss of her adoring family acutely, even as a very little girl, although Duriel does his best to assuage this loss with his visits and letters.  It is something she never forgets: the loss of her family, and something she always treasures close to her heart, even sleeping in her lonely little bed, late at night.

As Gabriel grows from a small child into a somewhat larger one, she makes a name for herself as a scapegrace and darling of the crèche.  She is pretty, funny, kind, friendly, energetic, and adventurous.  She takes without asking and gives herself unconditionally to everyone.  She is always getting herself into and out of trouble, but she is well loved, and although she is punished often, she is never punished particularly badly.    


By chance (or on account of fate) she meets a sofia named Peter and he Takes the Vows with her when she is only ten years old.  It is a binding oath that makes them platonic soulmates and ties their destinies together.  He will be her companion for all her lives afterwards, and one of her closest confidants and friends.  He is a master Whitesmith and artificer, and although he can be queenie and high strung, he loves Gabriel deeply.  It is because of him that Gabriel has an inexhaustible supply of master keys.  She rambles about everywhere in the Watchtower, particularly where she isn’t allowed and not wanted.

Meanwhile, Gabriel makes both friends and “enemies” among the other children in the crèche.  She is particularly well-loved by Gamaliel, the angel of the Untouchable, as she actually takes the time to befriend and be kind to him.  She also kindles up a fierce rivalry with Lusheel, the angel of Generosity.  They compete over everything when they are girls: singing contests, fighting tournaments, and they even battle quite unsuccessfully in love.  Gabriel’s other friends are Medui’el the angel of Witches, Tethiel the angel of Okeanos, Israfel the angel of Music, the angel of Liberty, the angel of Joy, and the angel of Strength.

In this way, Gabriel makes a new name for herself: lovable miscreant and girl-next-door.  She is everyone’s favorite girl scout and good neighbor.  She is everyone’s kid sister, everyone’s youngest, brightest daughter.  She becomes someone again, after the faceless anonymity of her childhood.  It is a great relief to her.  She is always concerned with her own self worth and desperately wants to matter to people, to be loved.  Although she seems ever-cheerful and droll, a silly girl with no worries and a heart of gold, she has difficulty accepting that she has personal value (a problem her mother wrestled with her entire life, a problem she eventually lost to).  Gabriel wants desperately to be loved as well as validated.  She spends her life trying to prove that she deserves to live.  She learns early to give her smile to everyone.  She holds nothing of herself back, which is why it's so easy for her to go and go and go until she physically collapses (a problem that her grandmother Irahlem wrestled with, a problem she eventually lost to).

All through her youth in the crèche Gabriel begs Duriel to let her come live with him.  He is her favorite person of all, and the center of her world, and she misses the closeness of family desperately.  She wants to be something to him, more than she is, although what she isn’t quite sure: daughter or kid sister adopted ward, friend-that-is-family.  She wants to live for him and be loved for it.  She wants a permanent connection, one with meaning, deliberateness, and feeling.  She will happily give up being everyone’s daughter and sister if she can just be someone important to him.

Of course, she is someone important to him.  She has been the most important thing in his life since the death of her mother and her two fathers.  But Gabriel is young and this is a complex thing to understand.  Duriel is reluctant and reserved and Gabriel is neither of these things.

Duriel alway gently puts her off whenever she asks to come live with him (every time he sees her and every time she writes a letter to him.  It becomes a familiar tradition between them). Although he cares about her deeply, his own military career leaves him with little time at home to care for her.  Besides this, he is frightened by the prospect of being solely responsible for her.  She loves him so well, even then, with an absolute lack of restraint, that he is overwhelmed by it.  He is unsure he will ever be able to give Gabriel enough to balance what she gives him so easily.  And change of any kind is frightening.  It is best to leave things as they are, he decides.  He can always talk himself out of taking her home.  For her part, Gabriel’s heart is never crushed by Duriel’s careful refusals and redirections.  It is a familiar part of who he is, and she cannot doubt that he cares for her.  She resolves to accept that he has his reasons, but still, she always asks.  He always gently refuses.  It is one of the ways they show their care for one another.


	14. Duriel's Adulthood: The Malake Habbalah

Meanwhile, a decorated soldier now himself, just as his mentor had been, Duriel has been thinking over a very difficult problem: that of the threat of fallen angels at the Watchtower.  Since angelics can fall at any time, in any place, under any circumstance just by deciding to do so, this means they can cause an outsized amount of damage, particularly among the civilian population of the city.  The Watchtower is vulnerable, the city where Gabriel was born and has grown up, the city that Duriel first came to as a boy dreaming of a better future.  This is a problem that must be addressed, and Duriel believes that he has a solution to the problem.

After much thought, Duriel approaches the Archangel of the South with a proposition: a secret organization committed to identifying fallen angels before or as they fall and removing them by any means necessary (short answer: state sponsored murder).  This is the Malake Habbalah, the terrible thing that will become his life’s work.  He takes the code name of Kezef and receives his first orders.  From this point on he lives two lives: one his ordinary day time life where he is a staid, reserved soldier, and his life in shadows, the life of an assassin.  He receives no compensation for his duties, no accolades, not even any support or care.  He is expected to handle everything on his own and at his discretion.  The council will disavow any knowledge of him if he slips up and reveals himself, or if he is killed in action.  He is also expected to hold a regular job at the Watchtower as a cover, further cementing his dual identity. 

Duriel requests and is granted an extended leave from the army and takes a position as a teacher at the angelic academy, teaching physical combat, tactics, military history, beginning cryptography, and survival skills.  His youth in the wilds, his apprenticeship with Zadkiel, and his own military career have left him eminently qualified to teach these subjects.  This is his life as Duriel, angel of Clemency.

As Kezef the Wrath of the Malake Habbalah he is constantly observing everyone, even during his daytime life as Duriel, angel of Clemency.  He watches everyone closely, trying to discern indications that they are a threat.  He does his own investigations and submits confidential reports on his findings.  This work occupies a great deal of his time, much more time than the bloody hunts themselves.  He carefully documents everything, and the council secretly hands down death warrants, which he then carries out.  This is his life as Kezef.


	15. Gabriel's Apprenticeship with Duriel

As the Habbalah is being formed and finalized, Duriel also takes Gabriel as his apprentice.   It is her request, and although their fit as master and apprentice is perhaps even more dubious that he and Zadkiel’s has been, Duriel accepts her without question or complaint.  He is no longer on tour constantly, but rather a permanent fixture of the Watchtower.  He feels he owes it to her to act as her master and train her as Zadkiel trained him.  It is all she wants.  She is as devoted to him as a spaniel.  Although he still refuses to let her come to live with him (this pubescent Gabriel is somehow infinitely more threatening that the funny, busy Gabriel of earlier days) he is happy to take her as his apprentice.  He knows that she will make him proud.  Gabriel is a mild handful, as befits her reputation as not-particularly-terrible delinquent, but generally behaves herself as his apprentice, does very well in her classes at the academy, and is already well along on her way from sticky little scapegrace to belle of the ball.


	16. The Foxhunt and the First Two Years

One of the earliest hunts Duriel goes on as Kezef is a hunt for a fallen seraph, previous Archangel of the South, one of the individuals who assisted the formation of the Habbalah in the first place.  The fight takes place out in the snowy wild lands, where Duriel has tracked the former prime minister.  It is a brutal fight and requires Duriel’s ascension to bring it to an end.  Even then, the victory comes at a high cost.  He returns to the city secretly, with a leg broken in two places, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and a number of other wounds, including deep claw and bite marks and many many bruises.  Gabriel finds Duriel in his quarters, suffering alone in the dark because he cannot seek aid.  It is not Duriel who has been so mauled, it is Kezef, and Kezef cannot seek medical attention.  He must provide for himself.  Duriel cannot even get out of bed and has not eaten for days.  The mere fact of him being an angelic is the only reason he hasn’t died from his injuries.

From the time she is a child, Gabriel has loved and worshiped Duriel as a surrogate father figure, just the sort of person she wanted to marry.  Seeing Duriel weak and helpless, cared for by no one, alone in the dark, Gabriel takes her first unsteady steps as an adult.  She falls wholly and terribly in love with him at that moment: no more little girl crush and familial love, but heavy, difficult, powerful, deep love.  She discovers that she wants to be his partner in all things, although at this point he is certainly not looking for one.  He has decided to sacrifice any life that Duriel might have and live his life as Kezef, giving his heart to no one.  He will live like a monk.

Of course, Gabriel will have no idea of Duriel’s motivations until later.  All she knows is that Duriel has been terribly, horribly wounded and that he has no one to care for him, and that she must not tell anyone anything about this.  Gabriel is already a trained medic, having excelled at all her medical classes at the academy, one of the youngest doctors ever certified.  She makes excuses to everyone she knows, gathers up her things and moves briefly into Duriel’s house so she can look after him.  She sees to every one of his grievous wounds alone, cleans him, feeds him, and even reads to him.  It takes two weeks of constant care for him to get back on his feet again.  She has slept on the hearth rug this whole time.  It has been two weeks that will change her life forever.

She has found her partner, but she is twelve and has no real idea what to do with that information.  He is twenty three and a responsible, capable (if not invincible and invulnerable) adult.  She resolves to do her best to learn all she can, so she can someday become the kind of person he would want as a partner.  It is a turning point for her.  She applies herself to all her studies like never before and also begins learning the sorts of things one needs to learn to provide a warm and comfortable home.  A good student becomes a brilliant one, and she proceeds to pile up genteel and domestic accomplishments by the basketful.  She believes that if she is diligent, patient, and steadfast, she will eventually win his love, even if he seems unwilling to give it.

After this first incident, the fox hunt for the fallen archangel, Duriel reluctantly asks Gabriel to wait in his quarters many nights as he runs hunts, so she can mend him up in the aftermath.  He is never truly happy with the arrangement.  He would rather keep all of Kezef from her, and let her know only Duriel, responsible, quiet, and a bit boring.  Gabriel is too good to get blood on her hands by associating with the assassin Kezef, Duriel thinks.  Gabriel should be kept safe, kept apart.  It is one of the reasons he has made this terrible bargain with no reward.  His reward is that she will remain safe and shining, sweet, innocent, and well-loved.

Duriel never intends for Gabriel to become an accessory to the business of the Habbalah, but above all things, Duriel is practical.  Although he would do anything to keep Gabriel from knowing about the horrors he witnesses regularly, it is comforting to have her on hand to mend him, and useful too.  It is not uncommon that he is injured in the course of his duties, although never so badly as that first evening.  Gabriel is a more than competent medic and besides that she wants to act as his support.  Having her waiting safely in his rooms for his return also has another unexpected bonus.  If Gabriel is sequestered when he hunts, waiting for him to return, there is no chance she might be caught in the crossfire of any dangerous fight.  Duriel never tells her directly what he is doing.  He is forbidden from doing so by an oath to the council, but besides this he has no desire to disclose the true nature of Kezef’s work.  Gabriel never asks him what it is he does, although she does accidentally lay hands on one of his death warrants purely accidentally.  Of course, she will keep his secret.  She trusts him completely.  She will act as his balm and his comfort no matter what it is that he does with his time.

And so they pass through the first two years of their apprenticeship, getting closer and closer by turns, although this is not something Duriel can name himself.  They enjoy playing cards together (and also with Raziel).  They generally favor the most elaborate and ridiculous games possible, with pages of convoluted, changing rules that must be recalled perfectly at all times.  They play games of chance and games of skill, games of bluffing and games of strategy and enjoy themselves immensely.  Duriel is pleased to have found another challenging opponent (other than Raziel).  Gabriel has an additional appeal in that she can be counted on as a stalwart and devoted ally.  She never takes Raziel’s side in games no matter what he offers her (like juicy secrets or embarrassing stories about Duriel.  Tempting, but no dice).

Gabriel and Duriel are close friends, closer than ever as Gabriel continues to grow older and more thoughtful, as he begins to realize the difficult nuances of her own character.  There is more to her than being the smiling darling of everyone, although that is part of her too.  He trains her very hard.  She sews him up when he is hurt.  They laugh together and talk together and she knows his true heart even if no one else does.  They are on intimate terms in the psychological sense, the keepers of one another’s secrets.

In this way Gabriel is considerably more mature than her peers.  Whether or not she rightly understands it, she has been acting as Duriel’s competent, adult partner since she was twelve years old.  Of course, there are also times when she is the silly Gabriel who gets herself into trouble and who must be reprimanded.  But then, the girl who adds fun and interest and real color into Duriel’s life is also an important part of Gabriel’s identity as Duriel’s partner.  She will never lose this element of humor and fun and mild naughtiness, no matter how old she gets, and ultimately, Duriel loves this about her (no matter how inconvenient it may be at times).  Duriel lives in a world of grey and red, and Gabriel furnishes all additional colors her own self.

In ordinary life, Duriel gives the impression of living as himself, but he truly lives and acts as Kezef.  In a way, Duriel is the facade, and Kezef is his true self, always there, watching and listening.  This sets him apart from everyone else.  It is something he understands instinctively: that if the truth were known, he would be despised and hated. 

His only other close friend outside former comrades remains Raziel, who has become a covert actor himself.  Having been expelled from the Hall of Scholars for his research into forbidden magic, he now works secretly for the High Council as their Witchking, using blood magic and sacrificial magic to create scapegoats for important figures in government, as well as securing the Watchtower itself with warding magic.  He and Duriel are both aware of the other’s status, but not the details of their secret positions.  When they discuss work it is only in the most vague and abstract ways.

As part of his cover and also as compensation for his services, Raziel is made master librarian of the Great Library, and he is also granted the status of Honored Master Scholar despite his expulsion from the Hall of Scholars (or at least no one is allowed to correct him when he claims this title).  Part of this arrangement is that his active tour of duty is waived.  He is more valuable at home and would make a terrible soldier in any case.

As Duriel’s apprentice, Gabriel encounters Raziel commonly, especially as the Great Library is one of her favorite haunts.  Idly, Raziel discovers that they are third cousins, apparently related through Gabriel’s great grandmother, the war hero and chieftain Chayliel.  This makes Raziel generally interested in Gabriel as something other than simply Duriel’s apprentice.  He becomes interested in her as his  _ family _ .  He has a rocky relationship with his human mother and brothers and sisters, and so he welcomes this uncomplicated relationship with Gabriel, who is amiable, good natured, and enjoyable to tease.  On her part, Gabriel is happy to have another living relative that will deign to speak to her (her grandfather still refuses to recognize her existence).

The Yule after Gabriel turns fourteen, she crashes the grand Yule festival with _an_ _agenda_.  This is different from all her other earlier illegal festival visits (she generally just crashes parties to have a good time, or peek at what the grown-ups are doing, as she is a nosy busybody) because this time she intends to be viewed as an adult in her own right, despite the lack of the requisite legal status.  As she is still a second class angel in apprenticeship, she is only allowed at the children’s celebrations during the day, not at the night gala that is open only to First Class angels and other adults.  Duriel is there because he attends all festivals to watch for aberrant behavior.  He is startled by the appearance of Gabriel at this party.  It is unexpected, arresting, perhaps alarming, but not unwelcome, which is possibly the thing that surprises him most.  It is her first time really trying out her wings to be his partner in public, so openly and without apology, and she is amazed to find that he wholly enjoys himself, so much that she gets stars in her eyes.   He forgets that he’s supposed to be observing the other guests.  It’s probably the first festival he’s even enjoyed since the passing of Gabriel’s parents.  Later, there will be some guilt and fear, but never any regret.  He is totally without either guilt or fear for the duration of the festival, in any case.  They are both under the spell of Gabriel’s black magic.  Although Gabriel is eventually apprehended and thrown out of the party while Duriel is otherwise distracted, it ends up being a very important Christmas for the both of them.


	17. At the Yule Gala and the Subsequent Night

Upon meeting Gabriel at the party, Duriel is more social than usual, he talks more than usual, he enjoys Gabriel's company.  She draws him out, and she makes merry, this being her first grown-up party.  This is the first time he has really seen her as a young woman for any length of time, charming and desirable, and desirable to adults, no less.  Other men.  He finds he does not appreciate their attentions toward her, and this makes him stop to think.  He does appreciate her attentions, because, “everyone enjoys being praised and petted by an attractive, charismatic girl.”  When he finds her gone upon return to where she had been, he does have to wonder if she has not left with someone else, and this makes him even more out of sorts.        


He is pleasantly surprised when he finds her sitting on a park bench in the bitter cold,  _ waiting for him _ .  It's as if his doubts are denied, and he is rewarded by her faithfulness, which he has not really wanted to doubt.  He finds it satisfying, that faithfulness, although he has not asked for it, it is something that he  _ wants _ : to have her there, waiting for him patiently, until  _ he  _ asks her to come home with him.  Gabriel is appealing when she playfully pushes, but she is perhaps even more appealing when she draws back, a bit shy and anxious.

The first kiss Duriel gives because he wants to, and he is impulsive.  This kiss only happens when it does because he doesn't think too much about it before acting on his whim.  She is lovely, and he has had a good time at the party, and she is pouting.  She deserves some small reward, and he is gratified to please her.  It's only a simple kiss, brief and unpremeditated.  What can it hurt?

He has never kissed a woman in his life.  Apart from a few chaste familial kisses from Jabriel, this is Duriel’s first kiss as much as it is Gabriel’s.  He never gives himself away easily, but guards every part almost jealously.  It is easy for him to kiss Gabriel because she has already become the person he wants to kiss, not simply this evening with the thrill of a festival still burning in them both, but tomorrow and the next day, and after that into days he cannot count.  This is not something he understands before kissing her, but it will become clear to him before the night is over, which precipitates their second kiss.

Unsurprisingly the kiss puts Gabriel over the moon and she forgets that she was ever cranky at him at all, despite being forced to sit waiting for an ungodly amount of time with nothing but a dancing dress to keep out the chill (not very successfully).

But Gabriel is rewarded for her steadfastness.

It is true, as Peter says, that people rarely leave festivals alone, and if Gabriel had stayed at the party and not been ejected, she would have likely received no few propositions (despite being fourteen.  There is no law or custom that forbids her from sexual experience at this age.  What she does is honestly her own business).  When she confronts Duriel with the challenge that she had no excuse to stay, having not been properly invited (by him), I think he's a little baffled.   _ Of course _ he wanted her there.  At that time, this feeling had overcome him enough so that he had forgotten that he had not actually asked her.  She was there, very clearly and utterly devoted to being solely  _ his  _ partner.   _ Of course  _ she was there at his invitation, because this is what he feels is true, at that moment and at this moment.  He can't really conceive why she didn't just retort to the proctor who ejected her that she was there at his invitation. 

Duriel can't understand her sensitivity and reluctance on this score. This is because he has appreciated her attentions all evening, and she has been lovely and charming, and very much a grown lady.  He doesn't know how much of this confidence in herself, confidence that he wants her there, that he is truly enjoying himself, that she is not a bother to him, _is_ _staged_.

It can be remarked that Gabriel operates in two modes: bravado, that is faking it very well, and completely insufferable confidence.  This is a case of the former, although it looks like the latter.  She has received no confirmations of feelings from Duriel, and doesn't expect to for a long while yet. (She still expects that she will have to grow into a woman that he can love, and she is trying her hardest to come close to this ideal she has built for herself: the woman that Duriel will love.)  Little does she know that he has already fallen for her  _ hard _ .  It's not something he has really come to terms with himself, although he has had glimpses of it over the previous two years.  He comes to begin to understand it really and truly over the course of this evening.

If Duriel had been there when the proctor came to take Gabriel away he would have firmly told him to shove off.  While not drunk, Duriel is intoxicated on the nearness and closeness and alluring possibilities of this Gabriel who has appeared on his arm.  It's as if they're both playing a charade where she's a few years older, and he is more than willing to accept her attentions.  It's nothing that's openly communicated between them, but she starts running with it, and he enjoys the exhilaration of running after her.  This is truly their first serious experience of playing house with one another (and not just Gabriel home-making on her own for him, and having him quietly come to appreciate her efforts), and in public no less.  This is their only public festival experience as two together until the May Day immediately after their engagement is announced.

For Gabriel, she is trying the exciting card of being lovely, of being charming, expressly for him.  She has learned to dance.  It is important to remember that he has taught her, just as Jabriel taught him, but in a casual, classroom atmosphere, like her combat lessons.  Duriel touches her casually, as her Master, is comfortable doing so.  They have done hand to hand and armed combat by this point.  Their dancing lessons are similar, although hopefully not as painful.  He is used to touching her, and thinks nothing of it.  She is used to him touching her, but she longs for that touch to mean something to him, and despairs that it never will.  At the party, when she stretches her wings, so to speak, wearing a red dress that belonged to her mother, whom Duriel was long in love with, and still loves and honors, her new red dancing shoes, and her hair tied up in ribbons that  _ he has given to her as her Yule present _ , touching Gabriel takes on a new meaning, a new thrilling excitement.  Suddenly it is not commonplace, for how could it be commonplace to touch her, not as he instinctively understands what each touch means emotionally, sensually, -- between the two of them -- before he begins to try and sort out what it might mean for other people observing them, for society at large.  He doesn't care at all for appearances, for society at large, at that moment.  This is the meaning of intoxication.

For Duriel, during the magic spell at the party, Gabriel already  _ is  _ his partner, his lover, perhaps even his wife, and he is taking great pleasure in showing her off.  This is also another interesting thing to consider: this is the only time when  _ he  _ really gets the chance to exhibit  _ her _ , and revel in the paternal masculine satisfaction of  _ possession _ .  Their next festival is May Day, after their engagement has been announced.  More than their engagement, there is the fact that she is archangel, and elected May Queen that year besides.  He must share her with the public on that day, and really on every day afterward, although she will tell him that she's all for him, he knows that the faceless,  _ they  _ disagree.  She is also for them.  She is their dream and their love.  She is everyone's wife and mother and lover.  That is what it means to be Archangel of the West.  This is therefore the only time he really gets to selfishly gloat over her, and have her all to himself.

Gabriel is riding excitement.  She is also intoxicated by the attentions he is showing to her.  The chemistry between them at the party is really electric, and she can feel it every time he touches her, and he touches her quite a lot, on the shoulder, in the small of her back, on her hip, he has his arm around her nearly the whole time.  She begins by hanging on his arm, but soon finds that she only has to push very gently for him to respond.  He laughs.  He enjoys himself.  He tells stories to her, and to other listeners.  He dances with her.  He rebuffs the advances of others toward her, humorously, but quite firmly.  This is not something she expects, that he will lay claim to her so readily and so publicly. She has gone to the party to push a little at him, to see if he will see her a little, just a little, as the girl she is growing into.  His responses are so passionate, casual, intense, and immediate that she is spurred on to play more fully the part that she has only dreamed of, previously.  Her little push has met with unqualified success.  She is blissful, laughing, playful, and very naturally sexual, because she has been made daring to show this side of herself to him, made brave to think that he will not be repulsed, not turn away from her in disgust, or think her juvenile and utterly uninteresting.  She wants to meet him as an equal, for him to recognize her as what she is -- fit to be his partner in all experiences, pleasurable and painful.  He is arrested by her playful sexuality because he finds he responds to it  _ very easily _ \-- and this is a man who cultivates his emotional solitude.  He is one part monk, one part hitman, but he is all parts captured by Gabriel.  He has never pursued a relationship with a woman before because he has not considered it to be something that he needs in his life.  The ease that he responds to her is perhaps a little frightening to him, but it's also an adrenaline rush -- something he's used to, and possibly mildly addicted to, given his hunts.  This is the first time he's experienced that adrenaline rush, that same fear-passion-murder-hunger-sex rush outside of the battlefield or Habbalah hunts (perhaps also on lonely nights when his desire for Jabriel was impossible to ignore.  In any case, it has been a  _ long time _ .  He may even consider past instances as being a thing he "grew out of").  Duriel has had no relationships with women up until this point not only because he's decided to be a monk, but also because the passion and fear and high of a hunt is something he has learned to ride all the way down into the dirt.  To put it another way: he's got another wife and it's called the Malake Habbalah.  Nothing in his adult life, nothing he has ever been suffered to  _ have _ , to  _ own _ , has ever begun to match the feelings he gets on the hunt.  Jabriel was never his, ever, no matter what he may have wanted, or what he may have dreamed.

But Gabriel, this Gabriel, she is around him every day, she devotes herself to him in dozens of different ways.  He finds himself responding to her intensely, and so easily, it is overwhelming.  No wonder he is drunk on it.  He wants her.  He cannot deny that he wants her any more than he could ever deny that he wanted Jabriel, despite how terribly upsetting and inconvenient that was.  He wants her and she is there, with him, on his arm, by her own choice.  She is not married.  She is not dead.  She does not look at him and see a boy.  She looks at him and she sees a man.   _ Clearly _ .  It is half-maddening for her to be so close to him, or it would be if he didn't feel self-assured in the knowledge (at that point, in that moment, on that night, with her on his arm and laughing) that all he has to do is ask for her and she will be his.  And from this assurance comes the next one easily enough.  He does not have to ask because she is  _ already  _ his.  (This is not about asking for consent, it is about asking for commitment.  He is making the leap from ‘I can ask her to be with me and she will’ to ‘I don’t have to ask her because she is clearly  _ already _ with me.’)

No one else can lay claim to her, not like he can.  He has known her since she was a baby, since she toddled around unsteadily and was always offering disjointed two word criticisms.  He has taken care of her for years, been the friend of her heart, and tried to be the best that he can be, for her.  Surely this must be what he thinks on this rose-colored evening.  He is feeling self-satisfied.  He  _ knows  _ that she wants no one else.  He senses that she tells him so in dozens of little ways, all the time, every moment, every day.

When he looks around himself and sees other eyes on Gabriel, what he thinks is Y _ ou would like to have this, but you cannot, because this belongs to me. _

It is also certainly true.  Gabriel has eyes for no one but him.  She may laugh and joke with other people at the party, but her eyes never wander and she never strays from his side.  She receives much more attention than she had anticipated, but it is only one person’s attention that she wants.

In Duriel’s case, this pronounced possessiveness and unmitigated smugness is not something he would permit himself to think, outside of this situation, but it is something he thinks at this moment, without thinking twice about it.  It makes him feel good.  It makes him feel satisfied.  He is baiting a growing hunger, because he knows, from experience, that being hungry for a while makes release that much better.  He does not have to stop and think about the ramifications of any of this.  He doesn't care about it.  He's not dwelling too hard or long on taking Gabriel home to his bed -- he is, after all, enjoying this moment of vivid social life, so foreign to him ordinarily -- he likes being in public with her.  He would like this moment to last as long as possible.  But even though sex is not really the thing that is occupying his thoughts, it would be foolish to consider that the thought doesn't cross his mind.  This is the way he is thinking this evening.  He's always so carefully controlled, always so stiff around other people.  Here he lets himself be unbuttoned and reckless and a sensualist.  This is a definite part of the Duriel he is, the Duriel he's been controlling and putting down, thinking he has no need for it.  It is not a Duriel that anyone is used to seeing, and it surprises everyone but Gabriel.  That he can be this way doesn't surprise her.  That she is the object of his attention does.  She doesn't begin to guess all the things going through his mind, but it would be hard to misconstrue the fact that he doesn't seem to be very interested in going home with  _ anyone else _ .  Although she is also drunk on the moment, and although she has delightfully terrified hopes he will take her home, she won't let herself hope that he also has this intention.  They  _ are  _ playing house, and she is reveling in it just as much as he is, but she can't shake her own lack of confidence.  She is Cinderella, after all, and she knows this.  Soon enough the spell will be broken and in the pale light of dawn she will be a sticky fourteen year old girl again.  She suspects the spell will break before he gets her home (just as it does for Cinderella).  What she doesn't bank on is that like Prince Charming, Duriel discovers that he is in love with the girl hidden under the enchantment, not with the enchantment itself.

What is the difference between Love, being in love, sexual desire, physical attraction, emotional chemistry --

Duriel already loves Gabriel.  He has since she was a little girl.  She has always been an important part of the family that he sometimes pretends he doesn't have.

Gabriel loves Duriel from the time she is very small, although this love is familial adoration until he comes to take her as an apprentice.  Reintroduced to his life on a daily basis and experiencing him as an authority figure for the first time Gabriel realizes she is attracted to him and develops a powerful crush on him.  After the foxhunt and her stitching him back together, Gabriel has a realization that he is not just a stalwart replacement for her father Zadkiel, that he's not invincible, that he is in fact a very vulnerable human being who has no one because he allows himself to have no one.  She falls in love with him in his weakness, and as time goes on, her love simply deepens as she comes to understand him more, each day.  With real passionate love kindled in her breast she discovers what it really means to be attracted to someone, the longing that comes and stays and builds, [this is different than a crush].  During all of this, she is having her growing pains, going through puberty, trying to find herself as a woman.  She loves him from the first, and only more intensely as time goes on.

So when does his familial affection for her begin to change?  It is not at the yule party, all in one night like the implausible scenario of a romance novel.  No, Duriel understands, back at his rooms, that he has been afraid to look away from her to see how she has changed, to see how  _ what he feels toward her _ has changed.  When she sews him up after his foxhunt it is his first chance of seeing her as an adult, as an equal capable of doing a difficult and thankless job.  He appreciates this quality in her so much that he is driven to ask her to be his solace in the difficult business of the Habbalah.  This is something he shares with no one else, but he asks her to sit quietly in his rooms and wait for him while he goes out and hunts, to have his house ready for him when he comes home, to tend his hurts and terrible injuries, to mop up his blood, and to do all of this without telling a soul -- not even Peter.  When she asks him, when she tells him "You don't love me like the person you want to come home to -- " she neglects to realize that she is  _ already  _ the person he comes home to, and has been since the first night when he asked her to stay and wait for him.  The Habbalah is a very private and intimate business, and she sews up terrible wounds more than once, loses sleep from worrying over him, does her best to comfort him every time he comes home.  I think he never stops to consider -- until this stray comment -- how much this means to him, how much her being there matters to him, how, upon having it, he wonders how he ever did without it.

Time -- it is all he wants, and it is something she has given him for the entirety of her life -- hours and hours of her own time, of her worry, of her great care, of her laughter and easy joy and love.

So in this they already have a strong emotional bond, a bond of two, where she takes care of him when he comes home battered and torn.  I think he would not stop to deny the emotional intensity that is already between them, he just hasn't stopped to think of it in this way.  Her tending to him has never had a physical overtone to him until this moment.  The next time she waits to care for him it will be something he cannot push from his mind.

He is ready and willing to rebuff the advances of her other prospective suitors at the party because he has understood immediately that he does not want her to be with or go with anyone but him.  He is already in love with her at this point or he would not respond so quickly to her when she gives a little push.

So _when_ is the question for him.  When does he "fall in love" with Gabriel?  Once he realizes that he is in love with her, faces it soberly in front of the fire and decides to act on it, once he realizes, he cannot ever lay a finger on 'when.'  Like Gabriel, once realized it becomes "always."  Another revisionist historian, looking back at the past that lies between them he cannot think of a moment when he didn't love her, when his heart hadn't already started to love her, not as "just his family" but as his partner, _ma_ _femme_ , they say.    


The yule party truly is an enchanted evening, and they're both drunk on their own mutual spells of enchantment: Gabriel's  _ I am willing to be yours, at any time _ , and Duriel's I _ will take you up on that offer _ .  Separated from one another by Gabriel's expulsion from the party, their heady enchantment begins to break.  Gabriel sobers up in the cold of the night as she sits and waits patiently for Duriel to come for her.   _ Surely he will come, _ she has not read his intentions  _ so  _ wrong.   _ Surely he will come _ , he won't forget her just because she isn't right under his nose.   _ She  _ won't soon forget the way he looked at her that evening, under the torches.  She could read the meaning in his eyes well enough even without fully understanding its scope, its terminus.  It is this inner warmth that sustains her and keeps her sitting on the bench in her dress and dancing slippers past all sense or reason.  She doesn't leave for anything to cover herself in the first moments because she's sure he'll come right after her -- she's still drunk on the spell, and as time draws on she doesn't dare leave for fear she will miss him.  This is actually a very similar scene to the first one between Jabriel and Zadkiel, where he collapses on the ground and she sits with him while he sleeps for hours, because she's afraid if she leaves for any reason she won't see him again.  She sends the dog for a blanket, but she herself does not leave until he wakes up and takes her home.

Gabriel knows he will come, and she is desperate to have some sort of sign that he won't put the evening out of his mind forever.  Peter asks her to simply ask him in the morning, but she fears that the morning will be too late, and the spell too long broken.  Duriel is fond of willfully ignoring things, and also of putting things off.  She doesn't want to give him the chance to ignore this.  So she sits and she freezes and she hopes, not that he loves her, that he has fallen madly in love with her, or anything of the sort.  She hopes that he  _ likes  _ her.  The spell is broken after all.

She never expects that he will kiss her.

He does because he is still under the lingering effects of her enchantment.

Having kissed her he must suddenly stop to consider everything that has passed between them this evening.  He finds she is still lovely, although undeniably fourteen.  He also finds that she is very, very cold, and on his account, too.  He is touched by her constancy, and I think he feels he has to reward it.  He doesn't want her to have to go back to being one more girl in the dormitory, a sad finish to her enchanted night.

He will take her home, this once.   


This once.

She can sleep on the rug, she says, and they can eat cookies and talk over the party, just as they have often done in the past.  He is willing to accept her alibi, although he is uncertain as to what his real intentions are.  With the spell of the evening broken for him, he is sobering up to find that he keeps staring at her when he doesn't intend to, at the normally inoffensive bare skin she exposes, at her slender ankles.  He can't concentrate, and every touch that was recently so casual, so thoughtless, is now heavy with implication.  He seeks to distract himself from the distraction of  _ her  _ while he tries to work out what is going on with him, what he really wants from her.

She asks him to tell her a story while she gets warm.  I think she may often tell him stories, and that he sometimes reads to her, but she has never asked him to weave a story for her.

He asks for a moment to think, and she tells the story of the Swallow who falls in love with the Moon.  He finds it a tragic story, and wants to thrust it away from him, although it seems to give Gabriel comfort.  For her, the story means  _ I will always be with you.  I can always be with you.  No one will ever take me away from you, even if we can't be together. _

For him it says  _ We cannot be together.  Our very natures pull us apart.  We will watch one another forever, long for one another forever, but never come close enough to touch. _

The story she tells repels him, although he doesn't fully understand why.  This is a truth he does not want to be true, a truth he denies.  He is pushed to present her with his own reality, and so he tells her the story of Rose Red Riding Hood.

It is the story of girl whose real nature no one around her really suspects.  They are content to wait until she grows into the beauty she will surely be.  The wolf wants her as she is, at that moment.  He does not require for her to improve to some undetermined point.  He is a terrible, wicked beast, but she loves him and is unafraid of him, gives him care and love and shares her heart with him, expends her strength to tend to him each night, and sleeps next him on the hearthrug.  He keeps her safe from the ills of the world, although he is perhaps the most terrifying of the beasts who might eat her up.  When spring comes she is happy to see the snow melting, but he knows he must go away from her.  Left alone, she weeps for the loss of him.  For her mother's sake she tries to find the earlier joys she had playing in the woods and under the green leaves, but part of her heart is empty and won't be healed.  Yet little by little, as the year turns, she releases her lover from his curse, without knowing she does it.  In winter he visits her again, and not knowing his face she cries for fear he has slain the one closest to her heart.  He reveals his identity, and it is at this moment, when she will surely confess her love for him, or he will reveal his love for her, that Duriel falters, realizing what his own truth has told not her, but  _ him _ .  The story of Rose Red Riding Hood is the one he wants for himself and for Gabriel, that she will love him despite his looks, despite his terrible nature, that she will appreciate what little he has to give to her, his love and his protection, that this is what she wants, that the loss of him would tear her heart open, that the small things she does, each day, give him hope and strength and allow him to keep living.  He wants her devotion and her constancy, unasked for, but appreciated, so appreciated.  He wants her love, unasked for, but freely given, something he did not know that he needed until it was something that  _ belonged _ , until it was his already.

But he is terrified of this realization, terrified that he has almost revealed himself so nakedly in front of her.

So he gives her a false ending that satisfies neither of them: he goes away and leaves her alone, and it is done.

She won't have that.  She refuses it.  It is worse than the swallow and the moon, because Rose Red will never see her wolf.  She is denied being with him at all, even if he will not love her.  It is something that Gabriel fears and rejects: the only way the truth of the swallow and the moon can be broken for her.  That Duriel will push her away, that he will retreat from her, that he will refuse her company entirely for any reason. [This happens to them.]

He tells her that she can marry a prince instead and that can be her happy ending.  He doesn't want this any more than he wants the swallow and the moon, but he pushes it on her, as if daring her to accept it.   _ This is what she should have, _ he thinks.  It is not what he wants, but it's what he thinks she needs, what she deserves.  This is not a self _ less _ thought, but actually a  _ selfish _ one.  He doesn't want her to have "what she deserves."  He wants her to choose him over everything, to prove her constancy again and again, because he loves her, and at that moment loves her  _ desperately _ , with true desperation, facing a real fear that she will never be with him (he has experienced this once already with Jabriel).  He wants a confirmation from her, that she will deny the world for him.  He ultimately doesn't care "what she deserves," because what he wants is for her to be with him, regardless.  Still he pushes it on her, as if he can force her to reject him, not because he wants to be rejected, but because he is in such a state of high agitation that he cannot help but force her into a similar situation, fearing what she will say, but fearing that she will say nothing even more.

She refuses again, and gives him her own vision of happiness: Rose Red in a cottage with her wolf-huntsman, tending his house, cooking his catches, and sleeping in his bed, just as she slept with him by the fire.  This is the truth she gives back to him:  _ I will stay with you.  I will be with you, no matter how terrible and fierce you are.  I love every small thing you have to give me.  To me, your hands aren't empty.  I am ready to make a home for you wherever we are.  I want no one else but you.  _  She fears:  _ You do not want this, but this is what I want to give you. _

It is this perhaps that gives him the courage to confess his feelings: that she is so ready to love him, so passionate to defend her right to do so, no matter what the world might say, no matter what she might lose or gain.

His confession splits her open, and she is unwilling to believe it at first.  To be fair, she has been very recently passionately defending her right to love him at all, and how can she but imagine she was defending it  _ to him _ .  She is not immediately ready to believe that he loves her, until he offers her some reassurance with another kiss.  Still, it is overwhelming, and she confesses all her secrets to him.  This is perhaps the first time he is her confessor, but it will not be the last.

They are both exhausted by their confessions, but they are both comfortable at last, they both feel safe and assured of their love for one another.  They no longer fear mutual rejection or banishment.  He is ready to be loved and to give her his love.  She is ready to give what she has and accept what he gives.

They begin, at this moment, their first steps together in their new life.  She will sleep with him, in his bed, not as his wife, not yet, but as his partner.

From the inside, the world changes unutterably.  From the outside, no one can see a difference.

They resolve to keep it slow, as well as incognito.  While not illegal, dating your underage apprentice isn’t going to win the world’s popularity contest, and no one would rightly understand their relationship anyway.  Duriel has no desire to rush Gabriel into physical acts that she’s not ready for.  He can be very patient, and he is as uncertain and unsure as she is when it comes to “how to do things properly.”  They are both like little children: simple, honest, and ardently devoted to one another.  They will work out all complications as they go.

  
The next year is a good one.  They move forward slowly by turns.  Sometimes Gabriel leads and sometimes Duriel senses when she is comforted by his careful lead.  She is the most precious thing in the world to him, and he cares for her well and deeply.  They spend long hours talking with one another and sharing their thoughts and feelings.  They laugh and play together, and sometimes they comfort one another when times are particularly bad.  Raziel is the only person who suspects what has changed between them.


	18. The Military Tour

As Gabriel’s impending military tour looms, Duriel does something he would not have dreamed doing before becoming involved with Gabriel.  He puts the Habbalah on hold and goes back into active service for a tour, all to be her commanding officer.  He cannot charge her safety to anyone else.

His choice to do this distresses the members of the government who are aware of Kezef’s identity, but by this point he has become indispensable to them and they cannot afford to alienate him.  This request is the first compensation he has ever demanded of them, and so they comply.

His own status as a decorated soldier allows him to put together exactly the unit he wants, filled with old comrades who are known quantities as well as with new recruits who show remarkable promise.  It is a small special ops unit that specializes in deep cover reconnaissance.  The last position to be filled in the unit is officer’s aide and medic, which he intends for Gabriel.  He has not told her any of this as he has begun arranging it.  She can tell he is preoccupied with something, but she assumes he is dreading her deployment, because it will mean their separation.

Duriel’s choice to organize his own unit and keep Gabriel with him while they fight a war is not an uncommon one, particularly for well-regarded officers.  Family members on active duty are often deployed together, as are close friends and lovers.  This is one of the basic ways the angelic army functions.

Still, Duriel’s keen personnel requests do anger some of the people he is forced to deal with, especially since to all appearances for the last several years he has enjoyed a safe, comfortable civilian job teaching at the academy despite his considerable qualifications as a soldier.  No one who takes this stance could begin to fathom that the real reason Duriel went on extended leave from active duty is because he has been acting as an assassin and huntsman at the beck and call of the high council.

Gabriel’s officers exams throw something of a wrench into his plans.  Although she makes exemplary marks on the written exams, she fails the field exam, Denham’s Field, the no-win test of character, three times before passing it in an extremely unorthodox fashion on the fourth try.  She doesn’t believe in the no win scenario.

Having finally finished her exams, Gabriel is awarded the commission of second lieutenant and Duriel finally shares his news with her: they will go into the field together.  He has finished all the arrangements and everything has been finalized.  The Twelfth Special Ops of the Eastern Theater is finally complete.

Among Duriel’s old comrades in this unit are Fremiel, angel of Honor, and Amatiel, angel of obstruction, two very different souls who are nonetheless romantically involved.  Fremiel is an elegant, mannered lady-knight, and Amatiel is a crude, ogre-sized blunt object.  When they are not fighting with or insulting one another, they are having very fierce sex.  They are an unstoppable team in most circumstances.  Peter also accompanies their unit as Gabriel’s bondsmate.  This makes their small company very well equipped indeed.

Largely, their tour goes smoothly.  They are involved in one or two major operations and they spend much of their time in observation of the enemy, scouting deep in unfriendly territory.  Gabriel does nearly die of hypothermia on one occasion after falling through ice into a river in the middle of winter, but this crisis is fortunately averted.  Otherwise Gabriel is a good aide to Duriel as well as a good medic for the team, and an excellent sharpshooter with her longbow.  No one in the outfit comments on the fact that they sleep in the same tent when tents are pitched.  They are relatively discreet about sleeping in the same sleeping bag, but they are inadvertently stumbled upon once or twice, generally during their short sojourns in friendly territory.

Acting as a soldier is challenging for Gabriel.  It is hard for her to leave behind anyone who is suffering, even if it is an enemy.  Of course, Duriel is quick to dispatch any enemy that he encounters and finds still clinging to life after a fight.  Such is his sphere.  Gabriel would rather do her best to help them, even be they enemies, and certainly if they are humans and therefore civilians (or to put it more honestly, victims).  But the Twelfth Special Ops is not a liberating force.  They are an observational one, built to perform surveillance and reconnaissance, and occasionally support for larger forces.  This means that on many occasions Gabriel has to accept the fact that she cannot help the humans that are treated as slaves and cattle by demons, despite the fact that it is incredibly difficult to do so.  She wants to help everyone, and carries a great deal of guilt that she cannot.  She will not endanger her friends and comrades.  She cannot endanger the army that she is but a small part of, but she feels every loss she sees keenly, and she never gets numb or calloused to the suffering and death she witnesses.

One of the final actions of their small outfit before the end of their tour is an assault on a small fortified position held by demons.  It is Gabriel who suggests that they do this thing because there are many humans kept as slaves near the fortification.  Duriel finally agrees because she has a solid strategy on how this fortification can be toppled and the demons inside routed even with their small force.  Taking the fortification offers a tempting prize in terms of intelligence as well.  There is a demon strategist taking refuge in the fortification, one who has traveled from the City of Dis with numerous documents and plans.  The documents will be useful if recovered, and the strategist could be persuaded to give up further information if he is taken alive.

The plan is a success and the fortification is razed, the humans turned loose and the strategist captured.  Gabriel’s elation over having finally been able to help humans in captivity is short lived, since she can provide very little aid to them besides pointing them west, toward safe angelic occupied territory.  It is not as simple as merely setting them free, and this is something Gabriel soberly realizes.  She cannot guarantee their safety.  Duriel comforts her that it is enough that they are freed.  Their future as the slaves of demons was bleak.  Now, even should some of them meet their deaths on the hard path toward free territory, at least they will have died as masters of themselves, not simply killed as cattle.  Duriel knows what it means to travel a terrible path of hardships in hope of a better life.

But even as Gabriel struggles with the realities of the refugees, she is confronted with an even more troubling moral dilemma.  The demon strategist is unwilling to spill any information merely because he is threatened, and Duriel is therefore required to extract information from him by force.  Although he tries to keep Gabriel away from the worst of it, she does inadvertently witness some of the torture that is primarily carried out by Duriel, who is assisted by Amatiel and Fremiel, and she cannot help but hear the demon’s screams.  In the end, she is horribly physically ill into the bushes, despite the fact that Peter tries his best to comfort her, and tells her to forget everything she’s seen.  Although Duriel intends she not see the body of their now dead prisoner before it is disposed of, she does see it, as well as Duriel covered in the demon’s blood.  She has seen him covered in blood before many times, but this time is strangely different.  She is cannot handle looking at it all, and in discomfort and shame she turns away from him.

It is several hours before she can face him again, and neither are willing to talk about what has passed between them.  Gabriel feels guilty for not having the courage to look at Duriel, to look at the dead man, without horror and disgust and revulsion and even a little bit of fear.  Duriel feels as if his actions, although necessary and correct in his opinion, have somehow sullied her.  He is tormented by the feeling that she is a much better person than he is, and that she does not deserve a future filled with so much blood and so many ugly truths. He again feels he does not deserve her, and yet at the same time is completely incapable of giving her up.  He harbors a fear that she will come to hate him over time, because he is capable of such ugly, horrifying acts, and beyond being simply capable of them, he has a talent for them.  He has dedicated his life to carrying out these horrible acts, and on some level _she_ _knows_ _this_.  He knows that she knows this.  He will not ask her what she feels for fear of hearing the truth, and she will not tell him what she thinks and fears because she is ashamed of what she considers her own weakness.  She _is_ frightened of him, if only briefly, frightened of what he is capable of, and she cannot help but find that this is a terrible betrayal of Duriel’s trust on her part.  She is guilty and ashamed.  He is guilty and frightened.  They both pretend that everything is perfectly normal between them, but it is clear to him that Gabriel’s cheerfulness is forced.  He is reluctant to touch her for fear that she will shy away from him, and she reads his reluctance as disappointment in her, disappointment in her childishness, in her weakness, and in her failure of character. Her cheerfulness becomes more forced and their interactions become more awkward.

 

Before their final return to the Watchtower and civil society, Gabriel finally manages to screw up the courage to apologize to Duriel.  He is confused by her apology, because he can't think of any reason she might owe him one, but she’s just desperate for fear he will begin to hate her.  They haven't been physically intimate or even close since before the fall of the demonic fortification, and she is both lonely and distressed.  He assures her that he still loves her and that she has nothing to apologize for.  He holds her gently and she feels palpably relieved.

  
And then they return to the city, and their ordinary lives.


	19. Duriel's Occupation

Having at last returned to the Watchtower after months away in the field, Duriel finds a considerable backlog of work has built up for Kezef to take care of.  Carrying out warrants, doing investigative work, and reading confidential documents takes up so much of his time that he does not even have the time to return to his cover job at the academy, and continues his leave of absence from teaching. Given the amount of work he has, it will take at least three months before he can return to any semblance of a normal life.

His staggering confidential workload leaves him too busy to see even Gabriel.  Their last moments together happen during the first morning of their return, when they part at the door to his rooms, she with her boxed belongings bound for her new grown-up quarters that have been freshly assigned, and he for a private meeting with the Prime Minister.  Duriel’s overwhelming schedule rather firmly puts a hold on his relationship with Gabriel.  He has no time to see her even for a brief conversation, let alone anything more involved.  In a way, he is grateful for this respite.  Gabriel is now a legal adult and there is no longer any reason for them to keep their involvement a secret (in fact, during their tour it was a very obvious ‘secret’ that the whole outfit was aware of on one level or another, and this is a truth that Gabriel and Duriel both knew themselves.  Still, although their relationship was easier to recognize for what it was, they weren't yet out publicly.  That would have to wait until they were off the battlefield.)

Gabriel knows that Duriel is busy with his work -- too busy to even have her there to mend and soothe him.  She resolves to have courage and faith, but she finds her new life as an adult difficult and lonely without Duriel’s presence, and not at all what she had imagined for herself at any earlier point.  In an attempt to fill up her dreadful loneliness, she becomes a Pavilionwalker, one of the most difficult and exhausting jobs at the Watchtower.  She works long hours in the Pavilions, the temporary tent hospitals set up to tend to casualties of the war, tracks bloody footprints everywhere, and goes to bed exhausted in her little single cot every night, dreaming of Duriel coming to get her, dreaming of him holding her, dreaming of him comforting her.

And so weeks pass into a month, and then a month into two.  Gabriel is trying her best to be faithful and patient, but her fears that Duriel no longer wants to be with her are beginning to mount.  Surely, no matter how busy he is he could spare a few moments just to speak with her.  She is correct.  Duriel is avoiding her, and using his difficult workload as an excuse.  He spends as much time in the field as he possibly can, so as to avoid encountering her, and rarely even sleeps at home in his own bed.  He knows that when he sees Gabriel again, that everything about their relationship will have to change, and he is frightened of that.  He is frightened that she will reject him.  He is perhaps more frightened that she will not reject him out of loyalty, and yet come to hate and despise him over time.  Even at this late date, Duriel is reluctant to be loved.  He uses his work as an excuse and a distraction and tries not to think of anything, working himself into exhaustion as both a punishment and a justification.

But although he will not let her see him, he has kept a careful watch on Gabriel because he cannot help but worry about her safety (also this is a good reason to be a stalker).  He knows her schedule, when she comes and goes, where she works, how she spends her time.  He can see how hard everything is for her, and how she struggles, and he aches to comfort her but he is to terrified to see her, so he remains only an observer.

Yule comes again, and this time it is the first Yule that Gabriel will not spend with Duriel, barring the times when she was small and he was actively deployed.  Even then there were always letters.  Now there is nothing, and Gabriel is both exhausted and terrified.  Again she screws her courage to the sticking place and let's herself into his rooms, resolved to wait for him with her own Yule gift for him.  She waits for nearly thirty hours, and she even falls asleep in his (so recently their) bed, but still he does not come.  Finally she has no choice but to leave her gift along with her letter, as she is due back at the pavilions.

Her gift is simple, but it carries a great meaning, and it was horrendously difficult for her to leave it for him.  It is a single key on a chain to wear around one’s neck.  It is a key to her rooms.  In her letter she begs that he will come see her: any time, for any reason.  She wants him desperately, and her desperation is clear in her letter.  She is close to falling apart. She is afraid he has chosen to leave her life for good, and has no idea how she will cope with life without him.

She returns to her life in the pavilions, hopeful that something has simply delayed Duriel, and that he will still see her in the days after Yule.  She waits up quietly for several nights, often crying quietly (and sometimes noisily) into her pillow.

  
And still, he does not come.


	20. The Courtship of Princess Gabriel

Since her return to the Watchtower and her assumption of adult responsibilities, there is one angelic who has paid a great deal of attention to her, and that is Gamaliel, that unsettling friend of her childhood.  He is about four years older than her, and therefore already a respectable adult with his own accomplished military career.  He is always there to walk her to and from her work in the pavilions, and to make quiet conversation with her on her infrequent days of rest.  After a couple of weeks it becomes clear that he is courting her, and Gabriel is thoroughly unsure of what to do.

She cannot tell him that she is promised already, because her relationship with Duriel has never been public and now she fears it never will be.  She cannot rebuff him too harshly because it is clear that she remains his only friend and that he is otherwise shunned (although respected).  Gamaliel seems content to let things develop as slowly as Gabriel wants them to develop and does not push her to accept him as a suitor.  Still, it is clear that beyond seeking friendship, he is seeking a partner for a serious relationship.  She lives in continual distress and fear that he will propose to her, because she has no idea how to handle such a situation outside of outright rude refusal. 

Gamaliel is genuinely concerned for her welfare and does his best to discourage her frenetic overwork.  He is gentle, respectful, and competent, and he is certainly in love with her.  She isn’t blind to it.  Her worries over Duriel leave her very high strung, but he never complains about her neurotic behavior, simply attempts to soothe and calm her, and take her to do all the things that she likes.  He is extremely thoughtful, and makes no missteps during his courtship of her, apart from a mild awkwardness that comes simply from his lack of socialization apart from her.

  
Gabriel falls into the habit of accompanying Gamaliel when he asks to take her out to do the things she enjoys, although she doesn’t have much appetite to enjoy them.  She tries to enjoy herself for his sake, because being Gabriel she is very guilty about the fact that she cannot return his feelings (especially because he is otherwise very alone).  Gabriel’s other newly adult friends tease her about her suitor Gamaliel and what a creeper he is, but she always defends his character.  He can’t help who he is and how he makes other people feel, and Gabriel cannot fail to notice the fact that he is very careful to never touch her, lest she be made uncomfortable on his account.


	21. Gabriel's Election to the High Council

And in the midst of all these troubles, the sitting Archangel of the West resigns (an unheard of precedent) and Gabriel is called to stand in the election for Archangel.  She is elected in a landslide.  Everyone is enchanted with the idea that Irahlem’s own lovely grandchild will sit in her seat.  Gabriel is well known, and well loved. It all happens in a dizzy whirl, and before Gabriel can begin to wrap her mind around everything she is suddenly the new Master of Hearth, one of the four archangels, the most important political figures in the city.  Her small private quarters are reassigned to another angelic and Gabriel is whisked away to the Citadel, where she will live in the well-appointed apartments of the Archangel of the West.

The seat she inherits is considerably weaker than the seat that Irahlem held up until the time of her death.  What was once the head of state for the greatest of the angelic city-states has now become little more than a decorative figurehead who is expected to smile and throw parties.  Gabriel refuses to be cowed by the other archangels, particularly the elder statesman Master Strategist Uriel and the boy genius Prime Minister Raphael, who generally think she is a pretty but vacuous featherbrain.  Gabriel sets out to slowly rebuild the respectability, prestige, and power of the seat her grandmother wholly embodied.

Gabriel now sits on the council where she is privy to the information she chanced upon as a girl.  She must not give anything of herself away when Kezef is discussed in closed council sessions.  Her heart aches.  At this point, this is her only tenuous connection to Duriel.  The key that she gave him no longer works on her door, since it was made to fit the door of the quarters of angelic first class Gabriel, and not Archangel Gabriel.  She has a terrible fear that her heart will wilt and die from lack of nourishment.  Everything in her personal life seems futile and in vain.  This makes her very tired when she can finally relax her cheerful public persona behind the closed doors of her new home.

She feels very lonely in the mostly empty apartments of the Archangel.  She has Peter for company, but she still cries herself to sleep.  It is a house filled with not much of anything, since Gabriel has very few possessions of her own, although she is lavished with gifts as the new Archangel.  She doesn’t really want any gifts, although she does her best to be gracious.  What she wants is Duriel, and still, he does not come.

Duriel is surprised when Gabriel is elected Archangel.  It is a surprising turn of events, not because of Gabriel’s election by the populace so much as the former Archangel’s resignation after serving only three years.  It is not something that Duriel has ever imagined for Gabriel, this remarkable ascent to stardom and grandeur, but he cannot but believe it suits her, even as her association with the seat of her grandmother both frightens and distresses him.  He knows what price Irahlem ultimately paid to the state, what price Jabriel paid.  He knows Gabriel too well not to fear for her fate.  He has already seen her working herself to death in the pavilions, trying to prove herself worthy.

He is also aware of Gamaliel’s interest in Gabriel.  Although it is increasingly difficult for him not to act -- because he is both jealous and possessive by nature -- he forces himself to remain objective.  He forces himself to allow Gabriel the choice.  He knows if he goes to Gabriel, even with no apology and no explanation, that Gabriel will have him back in a moment, because that is how she is.  The only way he can really give her a fair choice is by staying away, even with her key burning a hole in his pocket (although by this point it's to a door that is no longer hers.  It's the thought that counts).


	22. The Bodyguard

What finally shocks him into action is the realization that Gabriel will be assigned a bodyguard.  The bodyguards of the Archangels swear allegiance for life and shadow them for all their days, protecting them from all threats both foreign and domestic.  Duriel knows he cannot formally apply to be Gabriel’s bodyguard because the bodyguard must be confirmed by the agreement of the high council, and there are members of that council who are aware that Duriel is Kezef (although most are not aware of his actual identity).  Duriel knows he would be refused and rejected based on some invented reason because he already has an obligation to the High Council as Kezef.  To act as Gabriel’s bodyguard would be a conflict of interest and cause him to neglect one or the other.  Neither Raphael nor Uriel is particularly concerned with Duriel’s personal happiness.  They are concerned with his utility.  And the council is unlikely to make another concession for Duriel as he is so recently back from his tour.  Although he has worked like a dog since his return, the involved parties on the high council feel their accounts are balanced and he has used up all his special favors for some time, possibly permanently.

Truthfully, Duriel has no idea how he will balance his time, how he will balance his responsibilities as Kezef and as Gabriel’s bodyguard.  He understands that occupying both roles will put him in conflict of interest, but none of that matters to him.  He feels he will have lost some essential element of himself if he walks away from Gabriel at this moment, if he allows someone else to take the appointment as her bodyguard.  He is not thinking about the future because he  _ cannot _ .  He is thinking of  _ now _ and the bridge of fire that must be crossed.  He will worry about his conflicting loyalties later.  One thing he is certain of: his first loyalty, his greatest loyalty, has always been to Gabriel.  It will always be to Gabriel.  Even if everything else in his life at that moment seems muddle and confused, this alone is clear and bright.

Duriel’s only chance to interrupt the wheels that are already in motion is at open senate, during the formal swearing in ceremony for Gabriel’s council approved bodyguard, Gamaliel.  He will have to take an enormous gamble, and stake both their futures on it. He does not see Gabriel before the ceremony.  He cannot.  He is afraid he will lose his nerve.

And so he shows up at the senate session without a cloak despite the fact that it's snowing heavily and quietly bides his time in the back.  From the dais, Gabriel sees him and her heart leaps into her throat, but she cannot call out to him because all the eyes of the Watchtower are upon her.  Still, her heart is filled with hope. Duriel is there.  It is all she has wanted.  She feels as if she hasn't seen him in years, and when she smiles at the people, she smiles at him.

The ceremony proceeds as clockwork.  It is, after all, just a formality.  When the traditional call for volunteers for the Archangel’s bodyguard is made, the call Gamaliel is scripted to answer, Duriel gets to his feet in a flash and answers before Gamaliel (one of the times it pays to be the fastest man alive).  Before anything else can happen, Gabriel leaps to her feet, upsetting her chair at the council table, and accepts Duriel’s petition and witnesses by her seat name.

The council’s Master of Traditions is a bit unnerved by this breach of conduct, but decides to play the situation by ear.  He is one of the members of the high council who does not know that Duriel is Kezef.  On the dais, Uriel and Raphael are less than pleased with Duriel’s outburst.  There is no way Kezef can be sworn in as Gabriel’s bodyguard.  It is absurd.

And yet, this is what happens over the course of the ceremony.  Duriel is asked for his qualifications, since the council has not vetted him as they did Gamaliel, but fortunately for both Gabriel and Duriel, he is absurdly well qualified for the position.  When the other seats of the High Council are called to witness and vote, Raphael and Uriel find they have no way to prevent the appointment from taking place, and simply resolve to put the screws into Duriel privately at a later date.  Duriel’s appointment as Gabriel’s bodyguard is witnessed and ratified by the high council and very shortly it becomes the stuff of legend.  The people find it to be a very romantic and exciting story, and it is soon embellished, just as many stories involving the two of them are.  Her dead father’s own apprentice, and careful custodian of her when she was a child!  Her commanding officer!  Everyone is deeply embroiled gossiping about the love that must not be spoken, and whether or not it's unrequited.

Gabriel is so relieved to have Duriel back by her side that she nearly faints from nervous, overwrought shock.  Fortunately her swoon is very brief and he is there to catch her, and once she has recovered, to carry her to her next appointment (like a princess!  He does this a lot when she is too tired to walk herself.  It's good to be the Archangel of the West).

Still, there is one person at the Watchtower other than Uriel and Raphael who is not thrilled with this turn of events.  That is Gamaliel.  Gabriel does her best to apologize to him.  She knows that her acceptance of Duriel must by its nature be a rejection of him, he who has been rejected by everyone else. She genuinely apologizes to the best of her ability and begs his forgiveness and he silently accepts her abasement.  She wants them to remain friends, and to this he quietly agrees.  He spends a very long time looking at her silently that afternoon, then takes his leave of her.  Within two weeks he will have been reassigned to active duty again, and will be in the Watchtower no longer.  Gabriel sees him off as he gates out and wishes him well.  She agrees to write to him as a friend and he leaves without ever-so-much as brushing her with his fingertips.

  
He remains the untouchable.


	23. The Difficulties of an Adult Relationship

While Duriel is finally back by Gabriel’s side and this is a great comfort to her, things between them cannot be the same as they were before.  Too many things have changed.  It is the old fear that Duriel avoided so deliberately.  Not only is Gabriel no longer his apprentice and a very beautiful, very sought-after sixteen-year-old darling of society, she now outranks him  _ considerably _ .

Not only that, but they are both carrying unresolved baggage from their military tour, as well as several months apart and pining for one another.  Neither is sure what to do.  Although Gabriel still desperately wants Duriel’s love, she is afraid he will reject her if she pushes him. She worries that he has taken the appointment as her bodyguard out of duty and not love. (He has taken it out of duty and love, and because he could not do otherwise.  To not have attempted his crazy gamble would have been a contradiction of himself).

However, Duriel is also afraid to push Gabriel.  He is afraid to overstep his bounds.  While they have been lovers in the past, he recognizes that his own actions have possibly wrecked this relationship permanently.  Still, he must be beside her.  He must keep her safe, even if she no longer wants him.  It's all he wants to do with his life, drowning out even the Habbalah (whose obligations he will still meet).

Duriel moves into the bodyguard’s quarters at the foot of the stairs in Gabriel’s new apartments.  Gabriel is hopeful, but they are both still terribly awkward.  She cries herself to sleep and sleeps alone.

The worry over her relationship with Duriel begins to eat at her again, and she once again throws herself desperately and tirelessly into her work.  She continues to walk as a Pavilionwalker in addition to her duties as Master of Hearth, and this only heightens her popularity.  People talk about her as if she Irahlem come again.  This disturbs Duriel greatly, who can easily see how badly Gabriel is treating herself, how little she keeps back (basically nothing).

Gabriel is trying her best to numb the pain of having Duriel so close to her and yet not close enough, never close enough. After working herself into dead faints more than once, Duriel finally puts his foot down and tells her than she has to stop before she kills or permanently cripples herself.  Gabriel’s temper finally flares up and they have a long, loud argument where Gabriel tells him it's none of his business what she does with herself.  She’s maddened with frustration and loneliness.  All she wants is for him to love her as he did before, but all she does is lash out at him.  In the end she breaks down into nervous, exhausted tears and apologizes for her behavior.  She is ashamed she yelled at him, whether or not he deserved it.  He reassures her that she will always be his responsibility because she is his family, and he is glad of it.

She isn't sure how to respond to that.    


It is no longer enough to be his family and yet not be his partner and lover.  She has grown up out of being a little girl and her wants and needs are not those of a little girl.  She needs a partner herself, one she can depend upon, one who can comfort her and reassure her, one who will love the private Gabriel, the Gabriel who gets tired and cross, the Gabriel who cries and is weak, and sometimes foolish, the Gabriel who doesn't always succeed at everything perfectly and beautifully.  She needs someone to protect her from her own worst habits, someone to put their foot down when she tries to injure herself, someone who tells her that she has done enough, and that she deserves to be selfish sometimes.  She needs a partner to defend her right to be herself (to herself).

  
She can no longer be content as the swallow who fell in love with the moon.


	24. The Belle of the Ball

Their argument makes Duriel realize that whether or not he feels he’s ready, he must do something about his relationship with Gabriel or lose her forever and condemn the both of them to the misery of what-once-was and what-almost-was.  As Archangel of the West, Gabriel is extremely popular with all the eligible bachelors (and many bachelorettes) of the city, who all entertain visions of marrying the city’s beautiful, intelligent, selfless, devoted, charismatic, funny princess, the Archangel Gabriel.  Whereas before Gabriel had only to deal with Gamaliel as a suitor, now she has dozens and dozens.  They write her letters and poems.  They dedicate songs to her.  They beg her to dance so often that her festival dance card is always full.  They ask her to go on outings both pleasant and educational.  When she thinks there is something to learn, Gabriel goes out on these excursions.  Naturally, Duriel is in tow as he is her bodyguard.  Some of her suitors are put off by his silent presence, but others learn to willfully ignore him.  Fortunately for Gabriel, Duriel’s constant presence means her chastity (such as it is) is never threatened.

Gabriel is very kind to all her suitors and carefully responds to every letter, poem, song, and request she gets.  For her, this is also part of her duties as Archangel of the West, as well as her duties to herself, so she can be a decent person.  It's certainly not their fault that she’s in love with someone else, and she still feels she cannot let her attachment be known because Duriel has still not spoken to her about it.  She cannot confess to a relationship she is uncertain she even has.    


So she does her best to treat them all as gently as possible.  She also demands their good manners with one another.  She forbids them from fighting or competing over her, and when she agrees to go on an outing with one of them, she requests permission to invite the other suitors who might be interested in the subject.  This request is almost always granted, because if it is not Gabriel will politely decline the invitation.

While watching Gabriel be whirled around the dance floor by her various and sundry suitors (many younger, more good-looking, and with much more to offer Gabriel) Duriel finally resolves on a course of action and speaks to Peter privately.  Peter has been privy to their relationship since the morning after their intoxicating Yule party.  He loves Gabriel and is her closest confidant.  What he wants most is for her to be happy, and he knows that being with Duriel will make her happy.  It always has, no matter what the hardships.  He tells Duriel to go to her, but Duriel has already resolved to go to her.  He has come to ask Peter to make a set of rings for him, a set worthy enough to grace Gabriel’s small, active hand.

  
It is a request Peter is more than willing to fulfill.


	25. The Proposal

Once he receives the engagement ring from Peter, Duriel is resolved to act.  However, just being resolved to act doesn't mean a person as any idea what they should do or when they should do it.  For more than a week Duriel follows Gabriel around with the ring burning a hole in his pocket, carefully rehearsing what he will say, waiting for the time to be right.

Of course, in the end, all that goes out the window.

It is the worst day imaginable for a proposal.  An overcast morning gives way to fat raindrops.  It has been raining almost continually for over a week and there are deep puddles and squelchy mud everywhere.  The sudden advent of yet more torrential rain forces the two of them to take shelter under the eaves of one of the Watchtower’s greenhouses.

An awkward conversation about the weather moves toward a conversation about the sickness and death in the pavilions.  She talks about their past together, and how old she feels, and she talks about her parents.  She talks about her own insecurities as Archangel of the West and how exhausting it is to be adored by the public.  Gabriel is feeling a little melancholy because of the conversation and Duriel is more reticent than usual.   She makes a shy attempt to establish a tentative physical connection again (she wants to touch his face).  Duriel is nearly felled by her simple, guileless actions.  He loves her so powerfully it takes his breath away. He is not ready for this.  Sometimes he feels he will never be ready for it, even as he’s desperate to have it.  Gabriel balks before she actually touches him and then tries to fill up the awkward silence by talking about various creatures in springtime.  While she is talking about squirrel kittens in their little nests, Duriel blurts out a request for her hand, feeling like an absolute idiot.  Confused, Gabriel gives her hand over, and holds his easily.  She has not understood his meaning and all of his words have fled. Desperate to make himself clear, he gets down on his knees in the mud with no explanation.

Gabriel is keen with panic, sure she has done something to wreck everything, sure that Duriel is about to resign his position as bodyguard (he can't do that anyway) or tell her he is over his infatuation with her.

All he can do is pull her hand toward him, silently put the ring in her hand and curl her fingers over it before waiting for judgement.

It takes a few seconds for the situation to penetrate her brain.  When she finally understands what it is he wants from her, she begins speaking honestly from her heart about how long she has been in love with him. She has a steadfast heart.  She has never wanted anyone else.  Before she can answer the question posed by the ring she asks her own question: ‘do you  _ want _ to marry me?’  She is afraid that he is doing this out of duty, that he rightly senses that she is poor at living without him as a partner.  She does not want to bind him if he does not come in love.  This is a question Duriel can answer immediately, even given the desertion of basically every word in his vocabulary.  He says “That's why I gave you the ring,” perfectly seriously.

At this point, Gabriel’s cup runneth over and she forgives Duriel of all his trespasses, as she once did on a Yule night.  She leaps on him as she says yes, then explains what her ‘yes’ means (it means yes).  She laughs as he picks her up and spins her around and around, and then they share a very pointed and involved kiss.

It is at this point that a cheer goes up in the greenhouse behind them.  Gabriel’s overwhelming delight has pushed her into ascension for a few moments (likely when she tackles Duriel) and this has caused the entire greenhouse to grow into mature fruit in an instant.  The workers in the greenhouse have been watching everything between Duriel and Gabriel since their first arrival from behind the glass, and every person believes that they have been witness to a miraculous and wonderful love story.  Before the evening is out the city is abuzz with embellished accounts of Duriel’s heroic proposal, many of which feature him fighting various ruffians on her behalf and also serenading her with a song he wrote himself about their undying love for one another.

  
Everyone at the Watchtower approves!  As far as they’re concerned, Duriel is an excellent match for the lovely Archangel of the West, although her many suitors are disappointed

**Author's Note:**

> Rather than a proper story, these notes are written as a summary of events, so they can be easily referenced. The actual works will come in time, as they're edited, but I thought people might appreciate some set of cliff notes that they could reference when I start talking about Lovesong.


End file.
